Before Beasts, There Were Storms
by LoweFantasy
Summary: Tyson and Dragoon have combined at the wrong time, namely on a ship full of hunters out to keep the Bladebreakers as their test subjects until they're usefulness is spent. A typhoon ensues and swallows the crew, peaceful waters aren't promised, the US military has them in their sights, and there is still no sign of Max, Ray, or salvation in sight. Summary of previous books inside.
1. Previously

_What happened in previous books..._

Kai has kept it a secret from his team that what the Abbey had really been training him into wasn't just to become a beyblading pawn to his grandfather, but as a ninja-like, beyblade armed assassin. Kai has killed before, but intends to keep his skill and past buried and forgotten-until an unknown beyblader and a mysterious girl sing out, not only Tyson and Max's bitbeasts, but their souls as well. The singing girl, named Ayah, turns out to be just as much a prisoner as Tyson and Max's souls and nearly dies when she tries to avoid stealing Ray's soul as well. Not knowing she has survived, her captors leave Ayah alone long enough to give Kai a map to Tyson and Max's souls, to which he uses his bad-a beyblade assassin's skills to break in, slice the Achilles tendons of guards, avoid armed men, and escape with the souls and bitbeasts of his team mates.

In the second book, Kai has hopes that his incursion has been unnoticed, but he is soon distracted by his teammates adoption of the abandoned, injured Ayah, who is as beautiful as she is mysterious. Kai is not so quick to forget her inhuman abilities to control sound and sing out human souls. It doesn't help that he finds he isn't as immune as he'd like to be to her beauty and kindness, which he attributes to her inhuman qualities. When Tyson throws a homemade tournament for his birthday, Kai pays little attention to it, until Ayah leads him to a dark flight of stairs where another assassin, trained in the Abbey just as Kai was, is closing in for their kill. At the last minute Kai smashes their sharp assassin beyblades with Dranzer, but in the fight something strange happens and Kai is overwhelmed by Dranzer's explosion of flame. Ayah insists she just heard something with her strange, ultra sharp hearing, but as the flames die down and Kai finds himself once more in her arms, he finds himself trusting her less than ever. Nothing will harm his teammates, even if they happen to be gorgeous, gentle, and soft.

Come the opening of the third book, Kai is in the hospital suffering from severe burns. He demands to know what his ex-fellow Abbey assassins had to do with Ayah, and she doesn't know, but she is determined to stop them from harming the BladeBreakers. She offers to heal Kai, and in the process, lures him into a three day slumber. When he wakes up, not only is Ayah gone, his burns have completely healed, the president of the United States has been assassinated, and another assassin is waiting for him.

Kai is kidnapped and taken to a secret, underground bunker held by none other than a winged man who claims to be of the same species as Ayah, and who intends to use the abandoned Abbey assassins to clear the world of humankind so his own can flourish. Ayah is to be his Eve. But Kai, not keen on being anyone's captive, smashes his way to Ayah with the help of the also captive Tala. What Ayah and this...black angel are is made clear and Kai must defeat Cain, who so easily cowed the once fearless Abbey assassin's with his ability to kill if anyone on Earth is to survive. With the help of the Bladebreakers (who appear out of the blue because they're obsessive-compulsive friends like that and aren't likely to leave one of their own in trouble), along with the boosting ability of Ayah's voice, Kai burns Cain to death, but at the cost of burning himself as well.

In the fourth book, Kai comes to in the opposite state he blacked out in-freezing to death, and on a boat heading back for the mainland. Before his companions can celebrate, Max suddenly dives overboard and vanishes into the ocean. The others rush to the hospital, and Kai, always the lone wolf and only wanting to be warm, dodges going and head back to the dojo, where he, in a fit of desperation on finding water makes it worse, starts a fire and dives into it. He wakes up a scarlet, winged denizen of fire, to the surprise and delight of Tyson and Ray, who thought him and Max dead. Ayah also goes through drastic transformations. Since Kai can't find Dranzer, he figures they have become one, and tries to dissuade an excited Tyson that turning into a flying, inhuman freak isn't as cool as it sounds. Kai, and possibly the still missing Max, will never lead normal lives. Cain and the assassination of Ayah's family are already testaments that there is no room in the world for the kind of beings they have become.

Of course Kai has no time or patience to deal with his newly discovered feelings for Ayah. He already knows a man raised from a boy for cruelty and killing could never have the tenderness to make a woman happy, let alone a family. So what more is there to say?

In the fifth book, Kai has spent the last month furiously trying to regain his lost physic and strength that his unplanned transformation took from him. On returning to Tyson's, he is faced with the reality of his love for Ayah, as well as his anxieties concerning his own future and that of his teams. Just as a fully alive and also transformed Max works with the others to go to LA so his mother can research them, Tala calls with a warning of nuclear catastrophe. The world treaty ceasing the production or existence of firearms has been shattered by the American president being assassinated and the discovery of Biovolt's Abbey and their trained assassins. They must get out. But no sooner have Kai, Tyson, and Ayah found a boat to escape on to America, they are captured by a group that know far too well what they are, and how to keep them contained. Facing dismemberment in the face of science or whatever these hunters want from them, it seems to be the end of the line. A harsh reality that they are no longer seen as human faces them.

But then Tyson, still human, and therefore underestimated, manages to wriggle them loose. But they're in the middle of the ocean, on a ship full of their captors with no qualms about killing one or two of them. With bullets and darts flying, Tyson takes a stand with Dragoon, and Kai takes the fall for the bullets heading his way.

The last thing Kai perceives is the bright blue light of Dragoon and Ayah pulling out too many poisoned darts from his ribs and chest. Then all goes black, with little hope for waking up.

 _Now on to the sixth installment of_ _ **Before Beasts**_ _..._


	2. Beasts Series Order

Order of the "Before Beasts" series:

1\. Sound

2\. Fire

3\. Wind

4\. Water

5\. Metal

6\. Storms

7\. Lightning

8\. Ice

9\. Light

10\. Time

(freaking site keeps breaking down my chapters to code. X.X Sorry about that. I fix.)


	3. Summers of Russia

Before Beasts, There Were Storms

Book 6

by LoweFantasy

1

Contrary to popular belief, Russia wasn't a land of perpetual winter. Summer came just as it did elsewhere, bright and emerald green. At least back in Moscow the heat was dry, not the muggy, monsoon hell it often was in Japan and southern China. Not that the Abbey had allowed them to appreciate it much. Training didn't stop just because the snow cone venders came out.

But before the Abbey, right on the edge of his memory, Kai laid out on an uncut lawn somewhere, staring out at the warmed sky as he tried to feel the Earth's rotation. If he held his breath, he thought he could feel himself moving, spinning with the rest of space. Even before the Abbey he had been a strange one.

Mother had been there. Father wasn't. He didn't know what his father had been up to or why, but he remembered his mother, pale, gray haired, and soft featured. That is, he remembered the impression of softness. He could never remember her face in detail. But as we often remember the oddest, most unimportant details, he remembered the pop of the grass as she pulled it from the ground. They hadn't talked, nor would he have been able to recall what they had said if they had. But he remembered her, that she was soft enough to let him imagine he could feel the world turning, and that was enough.

He always recalled that faint memory whenever he stretched himself out in the grass under a hot sun. And then he'd close his eyes and try to catch the Earth turning him through space.

He woke up trying to catch that gentle momentum. Instead, he was thrown into a wall. Nearby, someone retched.

Then the world tipped violently again and he started sliding away. A pair of thin arms caught hold of him. He clung to them weakly, gasping. The only light was a green glow from a dashboard, but he could see the outline of pale wings.

"Wha-?" He could smell vomit. Had that been her?

"Hold on! I need to get the captain!" she cried, even as she pulled him towards something. As his hands found what could have been the back of a chair, but in the complete wrong direction being underneath him, the world started to tip back again like a giant seesaw.

He heard a man groan and somehow knew it had been him who had been sick. He didn't feel too well himself. His chest ached as though he had been stomped on by a crowd of elephants. It made it difficult to breathe.

"What's going on?" He couldn't find the force to speak it loud enough.

But she heard anyways, God bless those ears of hers. "Dragoon knocked all those men overboard and ransacked the ship, but when he returned to Tyson this huge storm came out of nowhere. Tyson sort of-ack!" She slipped and hit the wall hard, along with the thump of another body. "Eww." Well, he knew what she had slipped in. Though the floor tipping back and forth didn't help.

He managed to curl himself around the bolted bottom of the stool/chair, pinning him between the underside of the dashboard and the chair. It kept him from falling, as he didn't quite trust his arms.

"Tyson?" he asked.

"He's-he's-augh! I'm so stupid." She sounded near to tears. "He's enshelled in the typhoon. The change-I swear, if I had known his element was storms I wouldn't have sung to Dragoon on a ship in the middle of the ocean!"

Swerve-the beam of the stool dug into his guts. The floor tipped so violently he almost hung there, legs and arms dangling beneath him. The ship around him groaned, interspaced with cries of straining, popping metal. The ever present hush of the ocean waters had grown to a roar that broke out in thunderous crashes.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the control cabin Ayah had brought him to. Kai managed to make her out, crouched besides an elderly man in some kind of military navy jacket in the corner, her tail feathers and wings had been spread out for balance. The boom of thunder rattled the dashboard above him.

"How long will he be in there?" Kai asked.

"I don't know." She was definitely crying now. "My brother took three days, but the Captain says it depends on the element."

A bellowing crash sounded somewhere beneath them as something broke loose. As Kai fell back against the foot of the dashboard once more, he felt his stomach heave and his head fuzz. Just as he started to realize he had to find somewhere to vomit where it wouldn't fly in his face, the Captain threw up again.

"Where's Tyson?" he asked, a sudden image of a man-size silver egg rolling off the side of the deck and into the ocean.

"I already told you, he's in the typhoon."

"Like in the sky?"

"I think so-"

He didn't catch what she said next. He had never thought himself a loud puker, but as his stomach didn't have much to work with and his chest muscles didn't have much strength to muffle anything, it was loud. Luckily the ship was louder, and it started tilting away from him so he didn't get a face full of sick.

He swore. The lurching of this ship could have given Chuck Norris sea sickness.

"I'm getting out," he gasped, squinting through the green glow for the door he thought he had seen before. Like hell was he going to stick around in a room of vomit while he waited for his impending death. "If Tyson is the source of the typhoon, maybe we can drift out of here."

"That's what we've been trying to do for the past day," said Ayah's frail voice. "Why do you think we're in here?"

A whole day? Hey, they stayed alive for a whole day, that's something. Though why'd he wake up in a control room and not, like, a bedroom or something? But, then, if everything had been rocking around like it was now, he couldn't expect little her to carry him somewhere more appropriate.

He let himself half crawl, half slide to the door and opened it just as the floor tipped back. He braced himself against the wall on the other side and the door swung close, plunging him in darkness. He felt out a light switch, but no light responded. Of course. The power must have gone out. It wasn't like Ayah and whatever last survivor she totted as the Captain would enjoy sliding around in the dark.

Eventually, with much back and forths that made his stomach clench unpleasantly, he found the edges of what must have been a bed for the co-pilot to take quick powernaps in and flung himself onto it. The pillows and blankets definitely made great cushions against the wall, and the cloth wasn't as easy to slide on as the polished floor. Once he made it to his back he let out a tentative, weary snuff from his nose. A brief little poof of ensuing fire showed a map on one wall and a bolted trunk at the foot of the bed. He pawed his way towards it, unlatched the lid, and managed to find an electric lantern inside.

Only moments after he'd found the switch and filled the tiny cabin with its flashlight glow, the door swung open again and Ayah stumbled inside, her face so pale it matched her hair and wings. The dark circles under her eyes looked like bruises, and her mouth and skin had the stretched, dry look of dehydration. He had been taught to know the signs well, as they can occur in a snowy tundra just as easily as they can occur in the desert, and realizing that she must have been made sick from the horrid tossing to and thro sent alarm bells ringing. If they didn't sink, they could very well die from not being able to keep anything down.

She didn't need to reach for him, as he lunged out and pulled her two him just as the room rolled the door shut once more. He wound his arms around her torso, tucking his face against her clammy neck. Her own arms wrapped around him as well.

The rolling ship gave a sudden lunge, throwing the electric lamp to the ceiling. The light went out, plunging them into pitch darkness.

"I'm sorry," she rasped against his ear. "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. Since the day you met me I've only made your life hell. I'm so, so sorry." Though he felt no tears where his neck brushed her face, he could hear the sobs in her voice. Yet another symptom of dehydration.

"It's the rebirth of an entire race," he managed. "I don't know what you were thinking, but most births that I know of are messy, horrible things."

"That isn't funny."

"I didn't mean it to be funny. Your apologies do nothing for the situation."

"Then what can I do? I caused this mess, there has to be something I can do to fix it."

"Well, if you think of something, by all means-" a wall rattling boom of thunder cut him off. The boat's metal body squalled in protest.

"I didn't want to kill you all!" she cried, and since her mouth was next to his ear, he winced.

"Got any more obvious things you want to say?"

She jerked past him to grab a part of the bedframe as the room gave a rather steep tilt. When it felt as though they were falling, or at least, settling back up the other side of whatever wave they were heading down, she let go and clung to him all the harder.

"I'm sorry, I'm irritating you."

"Most things irritate me. But yes, your pointless pity party is annoying. What's done is done, move on."

"Kai?"

"Hn?"

In answer she shot away from him and retched off the side of the bed. Fortunately, she must have emptied her stomach hours before, because nothing foul rose to his nose. He rubbed her back the best he could while using that same hand to keep her from sliding off the bed with the boat.

"Perhaps it's best if we keep our mouths closed," he said.


	4. Eternal Happiness

**Okay, insider to author's life, um... 3 yr old is currently jabbering to me about the tractor magazine he's looking through after a failed nap attempt that I had needed more than him, which makes, like, no sense because I slept, like, 9 hours last night.**

 **So I'll probably die soon, since that's not normal for 25 years. But, you know, there's still sea tossed, winged lovers to account for.**

2

He didn't know how much time had passed when he opened his eyes to find the boat still and sunlight peeking underneath the door. Somewhere during the long hours he had dug out a rope from the trunk and tied the both of them down to the bed, and somewhere long after that he must have passed out. All he knew was that, at the sight of sunlight, a sharp migraine started up in time with his heart.

"Ayah." His voice crackled like crumpled paper and his tongue had swollen. He coughed and tried again. "Ayah."

A small moan answered. He fumbled at the knots at his chest, croaking profanities as his weak fingers kept cramping up. He managed, though, and rolled himself out of the bed. The side of his body that had been formed to Ayah's felt cold and misshapen.

"Come on. I need you to try." She only had one rope on her legs, since they had shared the other two. "There's got to be a kitchen on this damn box."

She oozed out of the bed in a feathery sprawl and used him as a prop to straighten, blinking owlishly at the sunlight as though she had never seen it before. Then she stiffened.

"The captain!" And before he could stop her, she jumped to her feet…

And passed out.

"Don't get up too fast," he said to her unconscious face, grinning. They were alive, after all. He had prayed for death for hours on end, but now finally being at the end…had the world really been so still? He never wanted to feel it spinning again.

Eventually they managed to get to their feet and into the cabin. The door outside hung open, pouring sunlight and a light ocean breeze across the tangled body of the aging man, his naval jacket hanging on by one arm. Ayah dropped by his side as Kai traced the streaks of blood and vomit across the cabin. His mouth tightened, and his dry lips cracked.

"He's dead," she said in a little, hollow voice.

"And so will we if we don't find that kitchen," said Kai, suddenly realizing he had to keep her moving. She wasn't use to death as he was. He took a firm hold of her arm and pulled her to her feet, then waited for the black head rush to pass before pulling her out of the control room and closing the door behind them.

He drank in the pain of light as his eyes adjusted, hissing. Clouds still scattered the sky, but he could see blue and the steel-colored plain of the ocean, steady and smooth. He had to resist spreading his wings and tipping off the metal stairwell then and there. Had air ever smelled so delicious?

The layout of the ship was easy enough to figure out. They found its large kitchen near the front and middle, with wide windows facing out onto the deck where they had battled who knew how many days before. Kai made a beeline for the fridge, vaguely aware of Ayah drifting to the windows. He had just spotted a seram wrapped case of Gatorade in a cupboard next to it when she spoke.

"Tyson."

Kai's hand hesitated, then pulled the case of Gatorade from the shelf.

"He okay?"

"He hasn't come out yet," she said. "It's his shell. It looks like clouds made solid."

The plastic tore away easily and he grabbed a red one. He always went for the one that was least likely to dye his mouth weird colors. Same with any sort of hard candy or popsicles, if he ever actually ate them.

"Ayah." He rolled one towards her. She stopped it with her foot and picked it up much as someone with arthritis would.

"What is this?"

"Never seen Gatorade before? Well, it's the best for dehydration. Drink it slowly. Don't want to overwhelm your stomach and end up just throwing it all up."

She pulled over one of the fallen chairs by the window to do just that while watching the deck. Kai stood next to her and took in what had to be Tyson's 'egg' while he sipped his.

"So weird," he muttered. "We're like alien spawn."

Ayah wrinkled her nose in her reflection. "It's just puberty…more or less. Human puberty's weird, isn't it?"

"You said 'human.' We really are aliens."

"Technically the humans are the aliens, remember?"

He shuddered and turned. "I didn't sign up for whatever stupid sci-fi this is. I want the children's cartoon back."

"What?"

"Nothing. Just an inside joke of mine."

He went back to foraging and found a packet of smoked ham that he thought he could trust. He didn't know how long the power was out, but since ham is cooked before hand and it hadn't ever gotten particularly warm in the kitchen, it was probably safe. He also found an unbroken carton of milk, cereal, and a broken bag of oranges. He brought these with him along with a chair and sat down next to her with a groan. She thanked him with a smile and tugged out a slice of the ham. They took their time eating, careful with their sea tossed stomachs. Neither of them asked the obvious, like how they were going to find their way in an ocean without a captain or a working boat, not to mention that both sail masts had been snapped loose during the storm and been thrown off into the sea. It was a sheer miracle they hadn't capsized or sunk.

No. They just sipped Gatorade and nibbled ham in peaceful quiet. And yet Kai knew this memory would be drilled into him forever, right up there with that of his mother and the sound of popping grass.

Somewhere in their munching, Ayah leaned her head onto his shoulder and dozed off. He wasn't against putting his head against hers and following suit, but he felt the need to keep watch of Tyson's grey-white orb on the debris-strewn deck. Every so often the white and gray seemed to shift, like smoke in water. He did find the moment to wonder in how comfortable he had become with Ayah's touches. It had been so long since touching another being came so natural…

They both woke with a start when Kai fell asleep and slipped out of his chair, taking Ayah down with him. Ayah managed to stop herself from landing on his chest, but once she registered what had happened, she lowered herself down on him anyways with a sleepy sigh. His sluggish body reacted by reporting every detail of her soft breasts and hair to his brain. Sunshine had warmed the boards beneath them and now shown on them like a well-used quilt. Drugged with exhaustion and the safety the sun promised, Kai drifted. They both smelled of terror and sick, but her fingers, which had peeled one of the battered oranges, had curled next to his face so his dreams were filled with citrus. They were half-formed dreams, the kind one gets on warm summer afternoons. Colors, shapes, impressions, sensations.

Ayah's citrus fingers at the nape of his neck, brushing the fuzz of dark hair. Soft kisses along his jaw line; drowsy kisses that were more like butterfly wings than lips.

Hunger brought him back again, along with the loss of sunlight. The sky had turned into a bowl of mixed gold and blue and the sun sat somewhere behind the ship. He did his best to ease Ayah off his chest without waking her, but she sat up the moment her pillow was replaced by floorboards, yawning.

"Hungry," she mumbled in a small, child-like voice. "Oh, if only I could have something warm. Like soup. Squishy, swishy soup."

Her cuteness wormed a smile onto his face. He found the half-drunk Gatorade and pushed it into her hands. "Sip this while I find something."

He tweedled with the dead stove range for a bit before deciding it wouldn't be worth it to try and mess with something he knew nothing about. Instead, he dug about for ingredients and managed to unearth some root vegetables from beneath an upturned box of dried potato pearls. Unsmashed ones, that was. And since more practice with fire couldn't hurt, he pulled out a big pot, a plastic jug of water, and headed outside.

"What you planning?" Ayah asked from behind. "Do you want me to look for anything?"

"I'm not much of a cook, but meat tends to make things work."

"Meat. Okay." The excitement in her voice made his smile widen. He had never been a fan of cooking until then.

Outside the kitchen he went down a set of stairs that led down to the deck, where he found a clear spot of metal and set down his goods. Not seeing anything that could make a good fire (the wooden crates had been washed away and most of the debris was metal and plastic), he sat down with his legs crossed and looked at his hands. He was supposed to be some denizen of fire. Breathing flames couldn't be all he could do, right? He'd seen Dranzer completely cloaked in flames before.

But even though he knew HE was fireproof, he knew his charred jeans and boxers weren't. All he needed now was to be naked.

So he raised his hand to the sky, very carefully scooped down to the warmth in his gut, and hissed between his teeth. A thin, yellow stream of flames licked about his hand, hot and with the strange sensation as though he had just drooled on himself, but they dissipated as soon as his breath ran out.

"Okay, so I'm not flammable." Maybe that was a good thing.

But couldn't he, you know, will flame to stay in being or something? For some reason the thought of not being able to come up with a way to make Ayah warm food displeased him. He was some freak fire bird now, so warm food should be a snitch.

Nose wrinkled with distaste, he tugged out one of his feathers, wincing as it hurt more than he thought it would. Then, holding it to the sky, he snuffed out another thin stream of flame.

This time, to his satisfaction, the object of his experiments caught. Please, he set the flaming feather onto the deck and watched. After a few minutes, his pleasure increased as he found that the feather didn't crumple up or burn out, but kept burning without a sign of being affected by the flame.

"That's more like it."

Ayah appeared a minute later, not only with their beat up white package of ham, but a bent rack form the oven which Kai bent to make a sort of grill over his burning feather, which had been joined with a few of its others to increase the flame.

"Now what?" he asked. His cooking experience consisted of whatever he could cook in a microwave.

"You have your knife on you?"

"Always. Want me to start cutting things?"

"Yep. I can take over." She gave him a sweet little smile. "Ham first, then the onions."

He flipped out his pocket knife and got to work, dropping in the ham by cubes as big as his thumbnail. "You seem pretty prepared for this kind of cooking."

"Well, I did have a variety of lessons from mom…" She pulled out a long, metal spoon that looked as though it had been bent at one point. "And, well, we also had some interesting living circumstances. Course Dad could just cook anything like a microwave by vibrating it up, but it wasn't really cooking. Just, you know, warming it. Mom, though, she could make a sun oven out of her feathers just about anywhere and…" she paused, glancing at him. "I'm…not rambling, am I?"

"No." In fact, this was exactly what he had been wanting. "Your mom made an oven out of her feathers?"

"Denizen of light. They could either reflect the light or absorb it, depending on how she turned her wings or concentrated or whatever her and my brother did." Ham started to sizzle and she reached in the spoon to keep them from sticking to the bottom. "Weirdly enough, I was more interested in learning to cook than my brother. After he burned a few dishes he grew to hate it, even though Dad told him it was important to survival. Food isn't just a way to survive, you see. The quality and taste is important to emotional and mental health, as well as a binding agent between you and your family."

"Sounds like your parents knew what they were doing," Kai said, holding his breath as he tried to cut the onion as quick as possible. "I mean, they seemed to understand that survival was more than just staying alive."

"The purpose of life is to find joy. If you can't have joy, what's the point?"

"Then riddle me this." His eyes were watering anyways, so he allowed himself a breath. "How do you find joy?"

She lifted her face to catch him in her sky blue gaze. There were unsaid words there, warm and sure, that penetrated him as deep as a soul could go. It was as though she wanted him to see that she was seeing him as she spoke her next words.

"To be with your loved ones," she said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. "Forever. But, then, my father use to tell me that, although the purpose of life was to find joy, we needed the freedom to choose misery in order to have the freedom to choose joy, so everyone is trying to find what makes them happy. We're not always successful. So, I guess, how I was raised was that being with your loved ones forever was…" She looked away, separating a clump of ham pieces. "I'm just not sure how to make that happen."

Kai dumped the handful of onion into the pot with a vengeful force. He hated onions. Now he could hardly see and his nose stung.

"Forever is a messy word," he said with an angry sniff. "Dying tends to do that."

"But family does go on after you die."

Kai snorted. "Till death do we part."

She stabbed a clump of onion. "What?"

"It's part of the marriage ceremony. It's why its consider kosher to marry once your spouse dies. Unless you're suggesting we're all pligs after we die or that we're stuck to asshole spouses and children whether we want to be or not. What next?"

It took her a moment of blinking to register what he had asked. "Potatoes, I guess."

"Peeled?"

"Oh, no. The skin is the best part. Has the most nutrients."

He set to work while fighting the temptation to rub potato halves on his eyes to get rid of the sting of onions. Good crap, that one had been powerful. Did getting tossed about in a typhoon do that to onions?

The spoon in the pot paused. "Our kind marry forever."

Something went very cold in his gut. "So, Cain is still—"

"I was raped not married!" she all but shrieked.

Kai, as rule, did not recoil from anyone, but he did then, suddenly feeling as though he had taken Tyson's place as King of Putting-His-Foot-in-His-Mouth.

But Ayah wilted down sheepishly. "I'm sorry, it's just…" Oh no, were those tears he saw in her eyes.

"I'm just confused as to how this whole 'death by sex' thing you sort of implied—actually said very clearly…" He should shut up now. Focus on potatoes.

They were quiet for a time. She seemed to be hesitant to say whatever was on her mind, or so he hoped, for it was either that or depression. He himself was determined to not say a single word until called upon.

After potatoes he diced carrots and shook up the paper carton of milk which Ayah had apparently mixed in some flour and salt in. Once the onions were caramelized as she liked, she had him pour in the water, watching the fire beneath them as she did so.

"This is pretty amazing," she said of the feathers. "Was it instinct that taught you that?"

"Just logic. I'm supposed to be a phoenix, not a dragon."

"Ahh." She remained on her side, watching the feather-fire lick at the bottom of the pot. "Kai…"

He waited. What was the point to saying his name? She knew he was listening.

And so she did, as she sat up. "I meant what I said…back in Cain's hell hole. My parents told me that if I ever slept with anyone besides my mate, heartbreak would kill my mate. Dad said it like, 'It was our lot to have weak hearts and strong powers, and mankind strong hearts and weak minds.' I thought if I could break Cain's heart by…it all has to do with the nature of s-s-sex and how it reaches the very depth of your being, to all levels…" her voice was shrinking, getting smaller and smaller till it disappeared. The tips of her ears had gone red. "At least for our kind—and Cain thought himself…you know…"

And he understood. "They never said what would happen in the case of rape."

She shook her head. "Because they knew my mate would never do such a thing, or ever allow it."

He raised an eyebrow. "How could they know that? It isn't like your mate was there with you from birth to make sure that didn't happen."

The moment he said the words, he felt like a complete idiot. Of course.

"On the contrary, he was," she said, just to prove his idiocy even as prickles ran up his spine. "My future mate was to be my brother. I was born to be his bride."

He tried to shrug off the weird urge to shudder and kick something and said, "Makes sense. It wasn't like you had a wide variety to choose from, unless you hooked up with a human, that is."

"And spell the end for our kind?" she cocked her head to the side and a strange little grin lit up her eyes. "Apparently it's what the rest of our people did, if not died. But even if my parents were okay with the idea, my brother wasn't. He was…protective and had a very strong sense of duty, whether that was of older brother or progenitor of our species. He didn't want me within sight of a human let alone in touching distance."

An odd, hollow moan, like a whale from the deep, came to their ears. In an instant he was on his feet, searching for the source, but Ayah simply looked to the cloudy globe a few meters from them.

"Tyson's awake."


	5. The Inappropriate Dragon

3

Tyson's fist appeared a second later, followed by his slimy, belligerent, Japanese head.

"Bacon?" he chirped.

Kai nearly face planted into the hot pot. "I'll distract him from the food."

But he didn't have long, as the shell, which had cracked from Tyson's fist, dissipated like the cloudy vapor they imitated. A naked, slimy Tyson plopped front first onto the deck like a wingless lizard. A long, sapphire plated tail, tipped with white horn nubs, clacked onto the deck besides him. Kai only had a moment to get to gather his bearings before Tyson was on his feet and hobbling towards them.

"Just in time, I'm starving!"

"It's not done yet, nor is it for you," said Kai sourly. "How are you walking?"

"One foot in front of the other—what do you mean not for me? Come on, buddy, have mercy, I just woke up!" That made him pause. Beneath the wet bangs plastered to his forehead, Tyson's dark eyes widened and he finally looked down at himself.

By far the greatest change were his legs. His feet had elongated into steep, draconian feet, the heels rising up to level with his knees. Even from a distance Kai could tell that Tyson would finally have his dream of being taller than him, as well as never having to clip his toenails again, as they had turned to wicked, curved claws. Sapphire scales covered his calves and thighs, leaving his kneecaps suspiciously vulnerable, and up to his rear and back where they became the heavy dinosaur-like plating that made up his long tail.

Tyson raised his scaled hands and wiggled his clawed fingers.

"Wicked," he breathed.

Kai the beginnings of a mischievous cackle start up in his chest. "Between the legs, Tyson."

With the look of someone discovering one treasure after the other, Tyson glanced down where his manly jewels and rod hung.

Only a curved, cup like scale remained.

Tyson screamed. When Kai's throaty chuckle rose to an audible chortle, Tyson's expression of horror turned to rage.

"I've been castrated and you laugh?"

"Yes."

"Why you—"

"Use your brain, idiot. What would happen to a dangly fleshy bit between your legs with all your claws and spikes about? And flying nonetheless?"

That did give Tyson pause. Kai could hear Ayah's muffled snorts as she withheld giggles.

With a furrowed brow of concentration, Tyson looked back down at his groin. To Kai's horror, the scale popped open. Ayah let loose a startled squeal.

Tyson, however, beamed. "There you are!"

"Celebrate later," Kai spanned the distance in a blink and grabbed his arm. "You're scarring the public. Get upstairs."

Tyson dug in the balls of his new dragon paws, which didn't help much as the deck was grated metal and not earth. "Why? I want food!"

"Because you're a walking slober-sicle with a pop-easy dick drawer. Shower, pants, now!"

"Okay, alright. Jeeze Louise, fresh out of metamorfofo and I still can't catch a break."

"Metamorphosis."

"Shut up, smart ass." He waved at Ayah as Kai pulled him past. "Save an extra serving for me, will ya?"

But she wasn't looking. She had her hands over her eyes, red ears, and a twitching smile.

Tyson's new clawed toes clacked up the metal stairs to the second floor. They passed the first door, which led to the control cabin and the body of the captain, the second (a utility closet), to the first of the dorm rooms. The furniture in here had not been bolted down and Tyson, who had been too busy 'rediscovering' himself to noticed the snapped mast behind him, got his first real look at the aftermath of the storm.

"What the…did the hulk break through here or something?" He kicked the corner of the upended mattress.

"More like you broke through the whole ship," said Kai. "There should be a bathroom near the back." He pushed at Tyson's back, forcing him through the wreckage.

"Woa, wait, I did this?"

"Once more, Tyson, use your brain. For me to change I needed fire. For Max, water, for you…"

"Air? I remember feeling like I couldn't get enough of it for a minute."

"Not just air. Storm element, remember? None of this wind sickle crap." He had to go around Tyson to open the door, as his friend had stopped dead as though turned to stone.

"You mean, I…on the sea…" His face had gone pale.

Kai, who hadn't planned ahead for the bathroom to be pitch dark, sighed and pulled out another feather, this one near his back and smaller. Honesty was his best policy, especially when it came to Tyson. "Yes, we nearly died, and other people did die, but no it isn't your fault. Murder is only accomplished when there is intent to do so." He huffed as lightly as he could, setting the feather a flame. "The water tanks are on top of the cabin, solar warmed, so you should have at least a few minutes of running water. You got the strength to bathe yourself, right?"

"Now that you mention it…" Tyson leaned against the doorframe, gaze still distant. "I'm really…heavy." He blinked hard a few times and looked to Kai, or rather to the flaming feather pinched in his fingers filling up the small bathroom with the light of at least ten candles. "It's manslaughter when it's on accident, right?"

"You really should turn off your brain concerning this. Now."

"I can't just do that."

"Sure you can. It's one of your talents."

Tyson scowled. "That's not funny."

Nor was it funny how distant and solemn Tyson had become. His dark eyes worked as perfect mirrors to the flame in Kai's hand, but behind that they'd gone fathomless, and Kai smothered the fear that elicited in him. Tyson was a soul of extraordinary compassion and nobility. While Kai could and had handled death given indirectly or directly from his hands and managed to dig his way out of it, he wasn't sure that was something Tyson could do. He wasn't sure Tyson, the indomitable, wouldn't be crushed.

When Tyson continued to lean on the fiberglass doorframe, cave-like pools of black gazing back at him, Kai reached out for his shoulder and gave it a hard squeeze. He wasn't a physical person, but Tyson was.

"Tyson, I've actually killed people before and meant it. You've seen me do it. So listen to me when I say you've done nothing wrong. You had no control over what happened. You have killed no one."

"Dragoon knocked some dudes into the sea," he said, voice dim and soft.

"Dudes who were trying to kill us."

"We don't know that. They didn't right away. They didn't have guns, so I guess they were following the law—"

Kai shook him. Hard. "Stop. Please, Tyson, this isn't a philosophical guilt trip someone like you can walk away from and I need you on your game. Ayah and Max, maybe even Ray, we need you on the ball. So stop, shut it down, and get into the damn shower."

Tyson blinked, slowly, but a bit of the depth vanished. He pushed himself from the doorway.

"That new fire trick of yours is cool," he said, waving a hand towards his.

Kai said nothing, but he stood there holding it while Tyson showered. Silence fell in between the two of them, and Kai smothered the urge to start up a chant that it wasn't Tyson's fault to quail his anxieties concerning Tyson's thoughts.

Tyson didn't take long. Once he found a towel, Kai snuffed out his feather by simply willing it (surprising himself more than Tyson), and the two of them went on a scavenger hunt among the wreckage of the bedroom for pants. Luckily for both of them whoever had packed it had been a bit larger than Kai, which meant extra length for Tyson's new, freaky legs. Tyson egged Kai into finding a new pair as well with jokes of plumber's crack (which was nigh impossible for Kai, as his tail feathers stopped any possibility of flashing butt crack). Once Kai had cut a slit for his tail and Tyson helped him pull through the impressive length of his tail feathers, he used his knife to slice them some belts. The owner of the pants had been bigger than them, after all, not to mention Tyson had lost weight.

Outside, night had fallen. The only light was the glow of the cooking fire on deck and the gray-blue afterimage of the dying day. Stars spread across the sky like a navy blue canvas that had miniature jewels spilled across it. At the top of the stairs, Tyson collapsed. Kai turned, thinking the dragon's miraculous strength had finally run out, but found his friend sitting up with his head tilted back instead.

"Look at that, Kai," he breathed.

Kai glanced up. Yep. Stars. Pretty. And he was hungry—wait. Since when did Tyson stop to sniff the flowers when he was hungry? Especially if he was anywhere near as hungry as Kai and Ayah had been on…hatching…

Kai hesitated. Then sat next to Tyson. He had to push aside the plated tail to get comfortable.

"You're thinking," he said, making sure the disapproval was clear.

"If I am, I don't know what of." Tyson leaned forward, rubbing his eyes hard. "Man, I can't remember the last time I've been this tired. So tired…" His fingers finished their rubbing and tangled into his wet hair. He was looking at the campfire near the back middle of the deck, where Ayah shone out in the firelight, golden white and half-shadowed. "I'm not worried about my conscience, Kai. I'm worried about hers."

Kai didn't answer. He couldn't. She could—no, most likely _did_ hear them.

Tyson tugged his fingers out and buried his face in his hands. He must have remembered Ayah, for his next words were whispered. "Have you talked to her about it?"

"What of it?"

"How she's feeling. She blames herself, right? She's the one that changed me—though I asked her to. I wanted to. I just…"

"She was trying to protect you." Kai sighed heavily. He was tired of the conversation already. He hated talking about the morality of death and killing. He had done it too often with Tala and himself back in the early days of the Abbey. He especially was tired of talking about it with one of the two people who had the least reason to worry. "Look, self-defense causes casualties, the end, and if you're so worried you should talk to her about it."

He stood. Tyson moved to follow and wobbled more than a little, so Kai steadied him before heading down the stairs. Tyson's tail made clacking bongs as it flopped onto each step from behind him. Despite knowing it was just them around, the racket made Kai wince.

"Any chance you could not make a racket?"

"I'd like to see you maneuver a tail nearly as heavy as your entire body-side note, I got a tail!"

"It's not maneuvering, it's lifting."

"We're almost to the bottom anyways."

Despite reaching the deck, though, the heavy plated tail crackled over ever nick in the deck's plating, not to mention making a low-key scraping noise, as though the thing were made of pure bone. Then there was the click-clack of Tyson's new claws.

So much for taking him on any stealth missions.

 **Author's Note:**

 **I'm updating early because...because I'm having a hard time wanting to be alive. The only things that are stopping me from finding a way to die is being afraid of hurting my son or not being there to make sure he's taken care of and happy, and not being able to return back to God. Just...things have been so hard for so long, I can't see how they'll ever get any better. And even if they do get better, bad things will happen anyways and no body really cares to have me around-which I know, logically, isn't true. My husband would be devastated, and some members of my family would be too, but I'm having a hard time caring and I don't know why-or maybe I do know why, but I'm just...I'm so tired of it all. And these episodes keep happening and I know my husband is sick and tired of them. I'm sick and tired of them too.**

 **And since I don't think I'm hard core enough to call suicide hotline, I'm settling for this. Maybe I'll post some more chapters from my backlog, just 'cause nothing is worse than leaving an unfinished story. Maybe not.**


	6. To Love--Missing Chapter

**Okay, so, somehow I forgot this chapter or skipped over it, which sucks because it's like the best one. I realized it when I was updating it on Wattpad and realied a chapter was mistitled. But, here it is now! (I suck)**

4

Since none of them could be certain how many people still remained on the boat, and also because Ayah and Kai weren't too keen on letting anyone be alone after spending so long in the darkness waiting for death, the three of them agreed to sleep in the room with the bathroom where Tyson had showered. It spared any of them the possibility of finding bodies, and also the mattress in there happened to be a king size. The moment they had cleared a space and flipped it back over, however, Tyson was down and out with snores to rival the best. Ayah and Kai exchanged glances.

"I'll push him to the side," said Kai. "We don't want him in the middle, trust me."

"It's okay, I can sleep at the foot of the bed," she said, a bit hastily.

He thought he could make out a darkening of her cheeks in the candlelight they had managed to scavenge. He wasn't keen on plucking out all his feathers for light, after all. "And be kicked by him?" No, that wasn't it. She wouldn't meet his eye. He sighed. "I can sleep on the floor."

"No! It's okay."

But the way she had squeaked that told him plenty.

"Just lay down." He tugged up the fallen comforter and threw it onto the bed. "I'm going to take a shower. You got your chance to take one earlier, right?"

She nodded, so he took up one of the can-width candles and headed into the bathroom.

Since the water was freezing, he wasn't able to withstand a shower for long. He settled for lathering up outside the shower, then rinsing off like a speed-demon. Despite his efforts, he was still left shivering madly and fighting the temptation to suck in the flame on his candle for warmth. It irritated him how delicate he'd become ever since his change. Though it did make him aware of how much of a difference it made to his tolerance of water his own strength and health made.

Back out in the room, only one candle had been left lit, and it was enough to see that Tyson still snored alone in the bed. He found Ayah huddled on top of a pile of clothes with an old coat over herself.

Kai sighed. "Ayah, get on the bed."

"I want you to have it."

Yeah, because he was a big enough jerk to make a girl sleep on the floor while he got the bed. Honestly. "Look, if it's that big of a deal to you, we can both sleep on it. It's not like I'm going to try and do anything to you." He wrinkled his nose. "Honestly, the fact you think anything would happen with Tyson there...ew."

She made a noise between a giggle and a cough.

He dropped to his haunches and put his candle on the floor, just in case he'd end up having to carry her to the bed. Force was a wonderful thing. "Come on. You said yourself it'd be like a big ol' sleepover."

When she didn't move, he reached out. The moment his hand fell on her arm, she spoke.

"It isn't that I'm afraid of something happening." She dropped down to a whisper. "It's that I want something to happen."

He pulled back, but her hand caught his fingers in her own. She turned over and sat up, her grip firm, albeit gentle.

Meanwhile, a havoc of flying, rabid things had taken up his insides. He didn't know whether to push her, fly out of the room, or take that as an invitation to discover what it meant to ravish a woman. The gleam of her eyes in the candlelight did nothing to remedy that.

"I love you, Kai. We've known each other for a short time, but your actions over the past few days have led me to hope-"

He tugged his hand out. "Yeah, it has been a short time. That should mean something to you."

Hurt flashed across her face, and he hated himself for that. But not as much as he loathed his sudden stupidity for not being on his guard since they had woken up; letting her fall asleep on him and touch him how she liked. Of course she'd get ideas.

But she only grabbed for him again, taking hold of his forearms. In a moment she was almost nose to nose with him, glittering eyes boring into his own like spears of icy sky.

"You said I could do what I want. You gave me your warnings, your disclaimers, I heard you. But remember, you said I could do what I want."

"This isn't some cute trial date you're talking about, though," he said, just as earnestly, even as her proximity ramped up his heart rate and sent the fire in his gut flooding into his veins.

"I wasn't raised to expect any 'trial date,' and I'd like to think our hardships together have meant something." She blinked, slowly, allowing him to watch the long shadows created by her eyelashes as they traveled across her cheeks. Her grip lessened. "Do you not want me? Is it you who wants to look around?"

"There's nothing to look for," he said without thinking. He hadn't been looking for love in the first place. Once Ayah had broken through his prejudice, the quest had begun and ended. She was softness, goodness, and beauty personified.

"Then can I at least kiss you?" she asked, breathing her musk across his face. His eyelids fluttered.

He couldn't tell if it was her or himself who closed the distance. When their lips met, it was as though something clicked into place within a spot that had once been empty. One of their wings knocked over the candle on the floor, snuffing it out. He had never been so willing to be in someone else's control as he was then, drawing deeper and deeper into her embrace.

When she pulled back, his scattered thoughts pieced together that she had managed to crawl onto his lap, where she straddled him, hugging his head to hers with both her arms and her white wings creating a cocoon of white space where only they existed.

"Say you love me?"

The words were vulnerable, tiny things, and yet they pierced him deeper than any gaze could have.

He had to answer. Speaking like that, he would have been compelled to obey even if she had told him to jump off the ship.

"I love you."

The moment he heard those words coming out of his own mouth along with the depth of their truth, he started to tremble. Any warmth he had been experiencing before vanished, and the fire in his blood went stale. His heart started hammering for a whole other reason.

Ayah jerked back. "Kai?"

He couldn't speak. He couldn't think of what to say. His throat was constricting and the air had become too thick and sticky. His mind started shouting orders at his body, telling him to snap out of it or get out of there or _something_ , but it was as though his muscles had seized up.

In the dim light of the lone candle atop the dresser, Ayah's eyes went wide. Her pale hands came up to cup his face.

"Kai, Kai it's okay. There's nothing to be afraid of."

And as she said it, he remembered where he had felt this way before. Back in an ancient underground room built of old world stones. The chains about him had been ice, and it was the first time he had ever seen Boris really sneer at him as though he were the unwanted filth forced on him. Someone precious had been taken, someone Kai could only remember by the popping of grass and summer skies, and Boris was sneering at his tears.

It was also the first moment Kai had fully comprehended just how much hurt the world could inflict on him through his heart alone. The broken bones or lashes Boris could give him were nothing compared to every day emotional and mental pain. Yet all those words-the loss of those summer days of popping grass and soft mother's laps-

Ayah had her wings and arms around him again, tight.

"You're safe," she said, softly and clearly. "I won't hurt you. I won't let anything hurt you. I won't betray you. You're safe, I promise. Kai, Kai, don't be scared. Breathe."

She said it as though it were such an easy thing.

Suffocating, he pushed her off with shaking arms and tripped to his feet. Black popped across his vision and he caught himself, hyperventilating, reaching for the door, stomach cramping harder and harder. The only thing that seemed to make sense anymore was that he had to get away and hide.

Stars burst into being, brilliant after the darkness of the bedroom before. The ocean water didn't reflect the starlight, but swallowed it, deep and fathomless.

Kai caught himself on the railing.

"What the hell am I doing?" he rasped. "What the hell...what the hell..."

She called for him once, twice, but she didn't follow him as he walked away from their room and back down the ships cabins, hand trailing along the wall, legs trembling beneath him.


	7. Dreams of Worlds

**Sorry I didn't get this up on time. My mom came to visit and I got preoccupied with that. To the guest reviewer who recommended the anonymous online chats over the hotline, thank you. Thank you for telling me I'm not alone. Thank you for being here. I'm sorry if I just unloaded a buttload of awkward with that last chapter.**

 **And with the hand up, I have gotten an idea as to how I can help my family.**

5

Ayah didn't ask what had happened when they met on deck the next morning. She didn't ask where he had gone afterwards, nor did she attempt to apologize for any preconceived offenses. She didn't ignore him either, but gave him a pale morning smile and a bowl of sweetened, cold oatmeal (she must have soaked it in water to 'cook' it since he hadn't been around).

"Tyson isn't awake yet," she said, as though mentioning something from a newspaper.

That surprised him a bit. During his first days as a newly reborn freak, he had wanted to sleep forever but got woken up every five hours or so by ravenous hunger. Even as he thought that, though, he thought he could make out a torn box of empty cans. Curious, he drew closer, a spoon of oatmeal held in his mouth. Sure enough, the cans hadn't been opened by any conventional means, but by rough holes stabbed into the tops. Ice pick? Or large claws.

Ayah didn't wait for the awkward quiet to settle beneath them. She had finished hers long before Kai had gotten to the kitchen, so she left and headed down to the deck. There, she found a spot in the morning sunlight to spread out on her stomach. White feathers spilled out as far as they could. He shivered with a sudden cold, longing to join her. It had been so long since he had felt properly warm. But after the freak out from the night before, he had barely stood being in the same room as her. After all, what kind of man had a panic attack when a beautiful girl was kissing him?

Remembering made him physically cringe. "God, I suck."

The sound of a long, plated tail being dragged along metal announced Tyson's arrival not too long later. He all but strutted in, scratching at his elbow.

"I'm still growing scales," he said, as though Kai should be incomprehensibly jealous.

Kai put aside his empty bowl. "If we're lucky, you'll lose all your baby fat to lizard."

"Dragon, dude. And what baby fat?" Tyson twisted around, even lifted up his shirt. "I'm a lean, mean, dragon-clawed machine. Hey, what's in the pot?"

Kai stepped aside and let Tyson at it, which was as gross as he expected to be. Tyson without the monstrous hunger pains of change were horrifying enough. He didn't even bother getting a bowl, but used the ladle to scoop the oatmeal into his mouth.

To Kai's disgust and amazement, Tyson tried to continue his conversation through the oatmeal.

"Dude..llrpp...this is the greatest-uuurssrrrp-thing evar. I can like-ruuurp-I don't know, like-ssruuuurp-feel Dragoon closer than ever. And he keeps-uurrpl-like, popping up in my dreams and talking to me-"

"Eat or talk." Kai wrinkled his nose at the flecks of oatmeal kernels splattering the floor with each word.

To his continued amazement, Tyson actually chose to talk.

"Like this last dream I had, Dragoon told me he'd been waiting for something like this to happen. That I had the strongest affinity for his blood yet out of all my ancestors. And get this-he looks like my dad with crazy white and black hair!" Tyson scraped the bottom of the pot with the ladle. "And he told me that the story Ayah told us about humans killing off all our kind wasn't exactly true. More than half our ancestors breeded with humans, and it was being bred to humans that killed some. Of course, there were hunters that wanted them for their powers-"

"Wait, hold on, Dragoon told you all this in a dream?"

Tyson blinked, his mouth opened up to receive the waiting ladle-full of oatmeal. "Doesn't Dranzer tell you anything?" The oatmeal went down, spilling a bit off the side of his mouth.

Kai leaned against the counter and folded his arms. "Just that there's a reason they chose to possess beyblades instead of actual weapons this time around. And something about protecting their descendents." He shrugged. "I suppose Dranzer and I are the same in that we don't talk all that much." Better that then Tyson just had a more powerful connection with his bit beast than Kai.

Tyson's eyes widened as he swallowed. "When? Is that really all?"

"Before you got caught up in that storm," said Kai, turning his face away. He didn't mention that it had been more of a near death experience than just falling asleep. He felt a bit of heat on his arms as his wings curled from his back and around his arms instinctually. It was something he noticed he did whenever he got uncomfortable, and he pushed his wings back stoically.

Kai was watching the sun grow with the gentle rocking of the ship, so he only saw Tyson wipe his mouth with his hand and lick the remains off it with the corner of his eye. "Use a napkin, savage."

The end of his tail, with its little boney nubs that were not yet spikes, swept side to side like a cat's.

"It must be my inner beast," he said playfully.

"Then you've always had it," said Kai.

"Is there any more?" He turned back to the stove to hunt. "Anyways, he also said that if we could get one of each element, we should be able to create another planet like they did-"

Kai jerked back, hitting his arm against the nearby fridge. "Pardon?"

"Make a planet," said Tyson, as though it was the creation of an everyday item they were discussing. "It's what the hunters were after."

Kai straightened. "If they really could make planets, why couldn't they just go off and make themselves another planet when the humans came?"

"Well, that's the thing," Tyson found another can and readied a claw on his lightly scaled hands. "You know how some of those that breeded with humans ended up dying because the humans cheated on them or whatever? They took that as some sign that humans would cause planetary destruction rather than creation if they were allowed to have that power, so most of them up and left to do just that, you know, create another planet somewhere else-so I guess what I first said is a little off. Most of those who STAYED on Earth hooked up with humans. Though..." The can hissed as his claw poked through. Tyson upended the can to his mouth. He emptied it in one gulp. He wiped at his mouth with his hand and licked it again.

"Will you stop doing that?" asked Kai, looking around for a towel or something.

But Tyson might as well not heard him. "He did say they were reluctant to leave Earth. It's hard leaving your home, and apparently it's as hard as getting Gramps to the doc's office to make a planet in the first place. And it takes a lot of time and sacrifice to build a world. They hadn't allowed the humans to come here thinking they'd end up having to give up the whole planet to them in the end."

Suddenly, Tyson froze, his arm swung back to toss the can into the box of empty ones on the other end of the counter. Light dawned on his features, growing his eyes to twice their size. The hair on his forearms seemed to rise.

"Make entire planets..." he echoed.

"You heard all this in a dream," Kai said, making sure to make his skepticism heard. "Best not to think too much on it."

But Tyson still stood there, stunned, arm held back in that stupid pose.

"Kai," he half whispered. "I think I might be going insane. Like...schizo-lock-me-up-in-a-crazy-house-and-feed-me-meds insane. No joke."

Kai just smiled and pat Tyson's mangled black poof of bed-head.

"Probably," he said.

"Probably? I tell you I might be going crazy for reals, totally freaking out, and you pat my head and say 'probably'?" Tyson brought his throwing arm to shove at Kai, but missed as Kai lithely stepped out of reach. "What kind of friend are you?"

"The kind that's going crazy with you. Also, we're spinning top champions, not world builders."

Tyson blinked hard at him like an owl trying to wake up. "But Dragoon said...he said once we got all the elements we could make our own safe place-make a..." Suddenly, he dropped his can and slapped both sides of his face. "Ow! _OW!_ Freak, _ow._ Note, slapping oneself with claws, not a good idea."

"You think?" Kai found a hand towel tucked in between two crushed boxes and tugged it out, bringing out a cascade of smashed macaroni boxes with it, and handed it to Tyson.

The dragon took it and dabbed at the nicks on his face oozing blood, still in a state of wide-eyed shock. "I was wigging out about it in my dream, but now...frick, how are we going to get off this boat? Did you say the engine was broken?"

"That's a first. You actually thinking ahead."

"Now that's just insulting."

"But you're on the right track. We have no idea where we are, and even if we did, none of us have experience in sailing let alone in fixing anything mechanical." Kai looked back at his wings, which had started to creep back around his shoulders without his notice. "I guess I could fly up and see if I can see anything. Unless you've figured out how to fly yet?"

"I can fly?" Tyson repeated stupidly.

Kai gave him a dead-pan stare. Then sighed and put his knuckles to his brow. "Go back to bed."

"But I'm still hungry."

"Then eat first, then bed. You're not fully awake yet." When Tyson just continued to stand there like an idiot, Kai barked, "Oy!"

Tyson jumped. "Wha! Okay! Okay! Can claw food...are we really going to make an entire planet?"

"Just stop thinking. Go back to how you normally are."

"Yeah, oka-hey! Did you just call me stupid?"

"I said stop thinking." Kai snatched up a can that had come out with the smashed Mac & Cheese and tossed it to him. "Eat. Bed."

And with his plan burning in his mind, Kai marched out of the kitchen and back out into the sunshine. He stood with his face tilted up towards the heat before he made his way down the landing, looking for a ladder or something that would get him atop the ship's cabin. Best to not give himself any extra work by starting on the deck.

His heart and stomach twittered and shivered somewhere beneath his ribs. His thoughts blurred back and forth between the two, difficult to decipher. _Make a planet? Elements? Bit Beasts? Talking to Tyson in his sleep?_

It took him who knew how long to realize he had stopped and set his forehead against the heated fiberglass and steel siding of the cabin. He stepped back and shook himself just to realize he wasn't quite sure where he had wandered to. He was still on the outside walkway, but he had gone to the back of it without remembering the walk.

 _What the hell..._ he shook his head again, so hard little black blotches burst into his vision and faded. _This can't be my life. What kind of weird, fucked up dream..._

That was right. Tyson had just been dreaming. What was wrong with him? No, what was wrong with Kai? He probably hadn't eaten enough-of course he hadn't eaten enough. He hadn't had anything to drink either. The sea must be getting to him. All this damn water.

By the time he found the small third landing, along with the ladder to the roof, his thoughts had grounded themselves considerably and he could feel the cool breeze tickle each of his feathers as he spread out his wings. A needle-like spike, not painful or pleasant, popped up his spine as it caught his tail feathers and spread them out behind him like a banner.

He breathed it in deep. Air. Blue sky. The feel of his legs, strong and sure beneath him, and the stretch of each of his back muscles in response to his thoughts.

And it comforted him how real and simple it all was. The sensation of being in his own body.

"Right," he said aloud in Russian, remembering summers and longing. "Scoop the air down, get them as high as you can, don't fall into the water..."

He blanched. Oh. Yeah. That.

"Coward," he hissed, jamming his wings out when they had started to retreat and scoop about his shoulders in fear. "You've done this before. Just going straight up, check it out, and land." Because if there was land or something, they could inflate some of those safety boats him and Ayah had...found and paddle there, or even fly there, if Ayah and Tyson were up to it. But first-up. Up. Up.

He gave a tentative flap. Once. Twice. His feet popped up off the roof, than down.

 _Creating worlds_ , came a stray thought and a mental snort. _I can't even fly._

His fore feathers touched, high above him. He had widened his stance subconsciously to keep his balance.

 _This isn't what I signed up for._

And with that thought, he brought his wings down with a thunderous pound of air.


	8. Turtle Power

**Guys! Guys! I've been working super uber overtime this past week to prepare a huge surprise for you all! :D Stay tuned! The big release will be September 1st, so please be sure to tune in then. Kind of hard to do a surprise with nobody there...**

6

The metal of the roof popped as it buckled under the pressure. Warmed air bounced off it, wafting up higher than he had expected. Bewildered, elated, he pounded down again and again, heartbeat racing up to his head as the boat sunk and the ocean waves became small enough to be friendly bumps in the sea blue carpet. As he rose he could sense the air getting colder, but his exerting muscles warmed it about him, protecting him, as they secreted heat instead of sweat. The sky grew more and more globe shaped till it swallowed him, no longer a vast line where the ocean and it became one.

He became so enthralled with his newfound height that he almost forgot the ship beneath him. By the time he looked back down, it had sailed away from him and shrunk to little bigger than his shoe.

And the ocean had turned into a white speckled, blue slate, ready to slap the life from him.

His muscles locked up. People were one thing. Guns were one thing. Fire and speeding cars and killer bit beasts and assassins and rapist monsters were other things. Being hundreds of feet high in the sky with no parachute or anything but what felt like arms coming off his back to stop him from falling to his death-

But the moment he started to fall, a scream curling from his throat, a thick breath of air, like a second ocean unto itself, caught on his open wings. It pulled on his tail feathers and legs, pushing them up till they aligned.

And without any extra effort on his part, he started to glide.

It wasn't much different from when he had jumped off the cliff with Ayah. As he calmed himself and gathered his bearings, the uncomfortable ache of his still growing muscles came to him. He could feel the sun on his back, blazing and welcoming, and the pressure of the wind as it slipped past his wings like water.

Alright. Maybe he could get use to this.

Figuring he better keep close to the ship, he found himself maneuvering instinctually. A shifting of weight to the side. A tensing of muscles as his tail feathers turned. In no time the shoe-sized ship was beneath him.

 _Right. Land. Ships. Something._

His gaze turned to the horizons. His eyes watered more from the immensity than the air smacking them, as his heat pushed out against the oncoming air enough to protect them. He couldn't help but wonder what Tyson would have to protect him from the elements as he turned in a slow, ginger circle. What he thought would be a quick perusal of the horizon turned out to be much more. Anything could be swallowed up in so much blue.

He continued to circle, finding it a safe and easy way to descend while keeping up with the ship. When it had grown to the size of a car, movement caught at the corner of his eye. Wondering how anything could stand out when the whole ocean was a mass of movement, he tried to level out and hold still. Instantly, staying in the air became that much harder, as gliding turned to heavy pounding. For a moment, he couldn't see anything, as his own rising and falling made it hard to keep his sight on one spot, but then something much darker than the ocean and tiny burst forth from the blue and back down. A dolphin?

Curious, and eager to shift back into gliding, he dipped towards it, allowing the wind to level him out flat once more.

The ocean came up to him a lot quicker than he wanted when he was actively diving. Just as he was floundering a bit to slow down and figure out how to circle around such a quick object, he caught a flash of dark gold.

 _Could it be?_

He stopped trying to slow himself, drawing closer and closer to whatever arched across the waves. Just as he got close enough to see the dips between waves and their caps, the dark thing launched out into the sun.

A person. A blond, freckled, familiar person, wearing what appeared to be a very unfamiliar, dark colored body suit.

Kai pulled up short.

"Max?!"

They splashed back into the depths. When they didn't come back up, Kai began to worry that Max had outstripped him and readied his already protesting muscles for a heave back up into the sky.

Then the wet, dark gold blond head popped out from the crescent of a wave directly below him.

"Kai!" It called up. "I thought that was you! You're beautiful!"

"What are you doing out here?" He half yelled, half panted back. "Scratch that, I'll meet you at the ship!"

"So there is a ship out here?"

"Yes!" And hoping that was enough to get him to follow, Kai fought his way back up, far out of reach of even the threat of the waves. The thought of their watery, cold touch made him shudder. He couldn't shake off the image of one coming up and swallowing him down whole, like a sticky goo monster.

By the time he got up to comfortable gliding height, his entire torso hated him. He never realized so much pressure of flight came onto his torso rather than his wings. He'd have to change his exercise regime.

Luckily the ship hadn't gotten as far as he had feared. Angling himself towards the now obviously ship sized shape, he tried to make his descent more gradual this time, though his smarting muscles didn't seem to want to cooperate.

He was just beginning to fear falling to his demise when he finally reached the deck of the ship and...crash landed.

When everything stopped spinning and beating up on him, he heard the clack of claws as Tyson ran across the deck to him. Kai feared the worse. With so many new joints to worry about, his old training in falls hadn't accounted for much.

"Kai! You okay?"

 _Well, let's see,_ he thought scathingly as he opened his eyes to giant wings and an arm and some blood and a tail feather tangled up in his leg-but at least the leg was in the right direction.

Tyson reached him with a slap of tail and scales. Kai accepted the hand he reached out to him and used it to rearrange his legs beneath him (carefully avoiding stepping on his own wings) and pull himself up. His ankle throbbed something nasty, but it wasn't broken, and, surprisingly, his wings had protected him from the brunt of the scrapes he could have gotten.

"Landing is always the hardest," said Tyson, gifting Kai with his trademark cheeky grin.

"I thought you were supposed to be sleeping." Kai snatched his hand back.

"How could I sleep after that huge boom you made on the roof? And then you just got higher and higher-man, it was sick!"

Kai gawked at him. Tyson's stamina had always been something to be reckoned with, but this was unreal. Not much had stopped Kai from sleeping the day after his change.

Something heavy, hard, and wet landed on the deck behind Tyson with a ship-shaking boom. Tyson swiveled with a shout of fright.

"What the-"

Max straightened, and Kai got another pang of jealousy as he noticed the other had landed on his feet without so much as a stumble. But once Kai got a good look at the boy's...feet, he could understand. Like Tyson's, Max's feet had left the domain of human shape and gone reptilian, but instead of the long toes or moving to walk on the balls of his feet like Tyson, Max's feet had turned broad and heavy, with the heel melded firmly to the ground with the rest of the foot, and each short toe was armed with small, utilitarian claws. The navy-purple scales built up his thicker, load bearing calves, growing into thick, plate-like knee caps before vanishing beneath the edge of violet swim shorts.

The rest of Max's body had changed as well, broadening till he had the width of a natural borne body builder, with scales covering where there had once been body hair. His stomach, chest, neck, hands, and most of his face had retained their human skin, but Kai could also see more heavy, plate-like scales peeking out over his shoulders. He wouldn't have been surprised to see that Max's back had become a shield of hefty, almost black armor.

Tyson's jaw dropped. "M-M-Max?"

"Tyson!" Max crowed, as though they were merely meeting for the beginning of another beyblading season. "You've got a tail!"

"Max," Tyson croaked back. "You look like tank."

"Tut tut. I've always been a tank."

Kai didn't have to see them to know that Tyson's eyes were tearing up as he flung his arms open and launched himself across the deck. Max was as surprised as Tyson when his new, dragonic legs took him six feet before he all but crashed onto the turtle's neck, long tail up and about for the first time and flailing like a metal death whip.

"Am I ever glad to see you, Maxie! Oh man, Maxie buddy ol' pal, oh gosh, I just-I just can't-"

"Air-Tyson-"

"I can't believe you swam here-that's so freaking cool!"

Kai had reached them by this point and yanked on the dragon's shoulders. "Tyson, give him some air!"

Tyson fell away readily, but Max didn't look too choked out. Just worn, as anyone should be for crossing an ocean.

"Technically I didn't swim all the way," said Max, shaking out his wet mop of hair. "I hitched a ride on a nice whale, think it's a humpback. Then I stopped at one of the various pacific islands around here, which just so happened to have a phone I could use to call mom and make sure your location hadn't changed-and get some sleep too, mind you. I can't breathe under water, persay."

Tyson gave Max a strange look. "Aren't you a turtle?"

"Turtles don't have gills, Tyson."

"But they live in the ocean and are, like, super slow aren't they? They can't get to the surface and down quick enough, they'd drown!"

"You're an idiot," said Kai, who took his own turn to give his teammate a heavy pat on the back in place of a hug. An easy smile pushed against his lips, small, but still there. "You had me worried."

Max beamed at him. "Aw, that's down right sweet coming from you, Captain. But, side note, you know this ship's sinking, right?"

Tyson and Kai stared.

Max flapped his hands, as though to wave away an offense. "No big deal! No big deal! Every boat's got safety rafts or something. We'll blow those up and I'll get you to the nearest island-and it's not like it's sinking all that fast anyways. I mean, you've been on here for how long?"

"Where's Ayah?" Kai asked, back in business. He could see to his scrapes and ankle later. He should have known this safety would only be short lived.

"Said she was going to go take a nap," said Tyson. Kai only took a few limping waddles before Tyson caught his arm. "I'll get her. You just get off that foot."

Kai didn't argue. It wasn't like he was all that comfortable talking to her anyways.

As Tyson ran off with much romping and thumping of tail and claw, Kai asked Max, "How far would you say the nearest island is?"

"Uh, the one I just left was only a half-day's swim away. Might take a day pulling something."

Not to mention Max did looked worn down. It hadn't been all that long since he had transformed as well.

"You feeling up to this?" Kai asked.

"Well, now that you mention it, I could probably sleep a week without too much of a problem. You wouldn't happen to have any food on you, do you?"

"Up the stairs, second door is the kitchen. Whatever you can find. Third door down is a room with a bed. Get rested. I'm going to catch up with the other two and get us a boat." He inwardly cringed and warmed at the memory. "I happen to know where the rafts are."

 **P.S. To ZH and all my other lovely guest reviewers: I can't respond to your review if you remain a guest reviewer and don't get an account. x.x I really want to talk to you and thank you formally, but I don't really believe in long author's notes to respond to all the reviews. I think it takes away from/interrupts the story.**


	9. Abandon Ship

7

They found a cooler to pack some elementary edibles and water in, which Kai left in the blowup raft while Max finished up on his nap. The sun had gotten low in the sky and Tyson had passed out not long after Max had, leaving him and Ayah once more alone. Luckily for him they had had plenty of preparation to do with the other two out, so there wasn't much time for talking.

Part of the reason it took so long was because Ayah and Kai had both agreed it would be a good idea to investigate whatever files or information they could find on the people who had been in this boat and why they had known so much about their species. Kai had ignored Ayah when she had suggested he let her look and give his ankle a rest, but his desperation to know more wouldn't let him.

They did end up coming upon what had to be the computer office. Unfortunately, water had flooded half of the floor. Not that it mattered too much, as electricity was off on the whole boat.

"Well, start gathering up harddrives." Kai limped over to the first tower and hunkered down.

"Harddrives?"

The tower's side popped out readily. "Find some plastic baggies, then. Something that we can use to protect them."

She hesitated. "Um, I can't-I can't just leave you down here. There's water coming in."

"Slowly." He squeezed out the input cords. "I'll be fine. We can't risk getting these wet."

He heard her footsteps taper off to somewhere else down the hall and focused on his task.

Ankle deep on the flooded half of the room, shoving on the last side of the computer tower, he leaned to the side on his bad foot without thinking and a bolt of pain lanced up his leg, just like any bad sprain would. He crumbled, cussing and scrambling to keep the harddrives above his head.

"Don't tell me this is another water weakness," he muttered, pushing the chips onto the counter and pulling himself on it.

And because Kai Hiwatari couldn't have nice things, a great dying moan of metal, like the sound of a shrieking giant from the depths, ripped across the ship, and suddenly the water had jumped to his knees.

It was a sign of how bad the past week had been when Kai just scooped up his hard drives and started his stupid-duck-limp-hop scuttle to the door. His ankle started up a rage of protest, but if there was anything he could handle, it was pain.

The quick pattering of steps and Ayah half crashed into the doorway, which had somehow become angled in the time Kai had his back turned. "Kai?!"

"Bags?"

She shoved out a waterproof, sailor's knapsack, the kind one would find in the emergency cabinets. He grunted in satisfaction, having imagined something like Ziplock bags, and tipped in the harddrives.

Almost as though waiting for them, the moment the computer bits hit the bottom, the boat gave another giant's shriek. The foreboding hush of rushing water jumped in volume.

"Fate wouldn't want us to rush or anything," Kai heard himself say above a frantic screaming that had started up in the back of his mind. It was a screaming he had long ago learned to ignore, even if it was wailing in memories of freezing nigh unto death, with water adding to the agony like oil on flames.

Fortunately, Ayah had no such humor. She had her shoulder shoved under his arm and the bag closed before he could fully register that she was touching him. Without a word she started half dragging him up the hall, the bag slung over her other shoulder. He didn't have time to argue.

Despite the cacophony made by the rushing water in the enclosed space of the hallway, Ayah and him made good time making it back to the deck of the ship. Ayah even took the time to help him sit down in their life raft, which renewed the ignored part of him flailing in alarm.

"Just go." He shoved off her hands.

"They're already coming," she said, not looking at him as she settled down around his foot. "Ugh, what have you done to yourself?"

"Sprained ankles tend to swell, don't get worked up over it."

"It's turning blue." She leaned down an ear to it, sending painful sparks up his leg when her soft hair brushed across it. "The blood's having a hard time flowing."

"I'll be fine. What's taking them so long?"

She straightened, cocking an ear. After a moment, she said, "Max is having a hard time waking up Tyson."

More gut-rumbling groans vibrated up from the belly of the ship. He could hear the boat's wrenching in his bones. "If they're not in the stairwell in ten, I'm flying up there."

"No, I'll get them."

"They're my responsibility."

She gave him a droll look he didn't like. He wasn't being an idiot.

"Seven," she said, turning her attention back to the stairs. "Six..."

"I can fly fine," he pressed, knowing she had every intention to stop him.

"Four…three…tw—op, there goes the door. Here they come."

Sure enough, half running, half tumbling down the stairs was the burly Max and long legged Tyson. Just as they neared the boat, the ship let out a titanic squeal and the deck visibly tilted. Ayah jumped out and Kai in the life raft slid a foot, nearly taking out her feet from under her.

"Tape, Tyson."

"We can do that in the raft, we don't have time!" said a drowsy, yet panicked, Tyson.

"It won't matter what happens if you pop a hole in the raft," said Max, giving Tyson a hefty shove that would have toppled anyone. "Give me the tape!"

Thankfully, Tyson kept his squirming to his head as dark ocean waves licking around the back of the boat's cabin and pawing up the deck towards them. Max made quick work of the duct tape they had found, taping Tyson's long clawed toes together and then adding extra layers to the end. Together, he and Ayah lifted Tyson into the raft next to Kai, whose sense of uselessness didn't seem so important in the fearsome roll of water crashing towards them.

"Get in!" Max shouted, shoving Ayah in just as a call like a dying whale thundered up from the belly of the boat and the deck gave a violent jerk higher. The raft slid, but Max stopped it, short toenails catching against the bolts and grooves of the deck. Teeth bared, the muscles about Max's torso bulged, and in an inhuman feat to match the messed-up supernatural theme of their lives, he swung the ten man raft around him and over the edge of the ship, like a hammer throw contest.

Everyone in the boat screamed, especially Kai, who suddenly saw himself facing the high possibility of being plunged into the dark, FREEZING, ocean waters.

The ocean caught them with a spray of salt and brine. Kai cried out as ice washed over him. He clung to the rope about the boat, wings crossed about him as far as they could go. A gurgling, moaning, crashing cacophony played all about them as the disturbed waters flung their raft up and down and up and down—until a sudden and strong force jerked them in a straight direction. He opened his eyes, images of some bit of the dying ship catching on to the raft and now dragging it down to the depths—but instead he saw the broad, plated back of Max, a rope of the raft flung over his shoulders.

"Hold on!" he shouted, before dropping his head beneath the waves.

The raft shot forward, up and down a huge, power wave just to skip like a stone on the smaller minions on the other side. They clung on for dear life as ocean drenched them, soaking in deep to their skin.

"Damn it! I forgot a life jacket!" cried Tyson.

Kai actually thought he could laugh at that. The idea of putting on a life jacket hadn't even crossed their minds' as two of them had wings that would make that nigh impossible, and one of them was…well…a sea turtle.

Somehow, in the nightmare of a rubber ski-jet, Kai twisted his head back to catch a glimpse of the ship's last moments. With all the bumping up and down, however, it was much more serene than he thought it would be. No geyser shot out, no earsplitting crunch, no explosions. Just the prow of a ship jutting not quite vertical from the water, sinking, sinking…gone.

 **Thanks for your reads. ^.^ To ZH and the Queen, two very active guest users. I'd love to get to know you! If anyone wants to get a hold of me outside of facebook, just look up lowefantasy dot come or LoweFantasy on Facebook. I'm scattered every which where, either under the name of LoweFantasy or T.S. Lowe. :)**


	10. The Long Nap

8

Morning came. Max ran out of steam and slowed to a paddle, which he occasionally broke out of to snack on the protein bars. Tyson fell asleep under a tarp with a sunburned and heat exhausted Ayah. Kai soaked in the sun long after his clothes had dried, though his feathers had a heavy, weighed down feeling he tried several times to shake off, and which didn't leave until the sun started to once more lower in the sky.

In the bloody haze of a day yet to be taken over by the dark navy of night, Kai saw Max slow, slow, and finally stop. For a moment, he thought Max was going to call it a night and pop up out of the water. But when a wave bobbed them up, his plated shoulders sunk down. With a curse, Kai shot out, catching Max by the ropes about his torso, and pulled him up against the raft.

The dark gold head flopped against the raft edge.

"Max. Max!" He gave it a light whap.

"Nnnngh."

Kai let out a puff of air and reached into the water to hook his arms under Max's. After nearly being yanked into the water himself (new Max weighed a ton and his pissed off ankle didn't help much), he managed to get Max into the raft with a minimal amount of sea water. He checked up on his breathing and pulse, then dug out one of the thin, metallic emergency blankets from the raft's storage pouch and wrapped it about him. He found himself smiling as he then turned to do the same with the dragon and girl beneath the tarp. Tyson snuffled something about hot dogs and snuggled closer to the feathery fluff of Ayah.

Team tucked in, he plopped down into the wider space in the middle of the raft and pulled over the cooler. After grabbing a survival protein bar (which, from what he read on the nutrition label, could probably kill someone if they ate too many through protein kidney blockage), he leaned back his head onto the rim of the raft and watched the stars come out as he munched. Rather than grabbing an emergency blanket, he wrapped his wings about him in a cocoon and breathed deep with his mouth open, which gusted hot steam across them.

Galaxies pressed up against the glass plain of the atmosphere. He tried to trace the edges of the Milky Way, but soon found himself caught in paths of brighter stars; a never ending connect-the-dots.

The ocean had fallen almost quiet, the hush down to a whisper behind the slap of waves against the raft's sides. He could even prop his swollen ankle on the other edge, exposing it to the cold, which he hoped would work like an ice pack. Ayah had long before taken off his shoe and sock to examine it, though she hadn't managed to do much other than make him feel sleepy.

And he was still sleepy, he realized, as he found the last few bites of the survival bar thick and hard to chew. The star strewn sky glowed bright as overcast daylight, though the contrast between it and his closed eyelids didn't have that great of a difference. He was even starting to…to wonder…if it was stars he saw or…

Siberian air flowed, sour and dry, against his face. He quickly covered his mouth with his arm, knowing his lips were cracking even as he did so. The snow rushing past wasn't white, but a light gray, which surrounded him in a blinding fog, and it creaked under his boots. Each step was a battle, as snow and exhaustion sucked down on his feet.

He had to get there, in time…he had to get there…he was already so late, so late, too late.

When he reached to his belt for Dranzer, his fingers had gone clumsy with cold. They wouldn't listen. It was almost as though they weren't his own.

 _I'm going to die,_ he thought, clear as day. Yet it didn't frighten him. If anything, it brought a rush of relief.

Finally. Finally he could be free. Nothing here could touch the dead, nor would he be able to hurt anyone else.

Melting with a blissful acceptance, he allowed the snow to swallow him to the knees up and fell face forward. Even the snow didn't feel as cold as it should. He didn't even have a problem breathing. There were worse ways to die than by freezing. He experienced hypothermia several times before in his training, and it was nothing compared to that horrid freezing that had proceeded his transformation.

Wait…where were his wings? His fire? Shouldn't they…shouldn't he try to…no, it didn't matter now. It was going black. He could rest. Safe now. Safe.

A hand took hold of the back of his shirt and, in one heft, pulled Kai back to his feet and held him there.

A shock of red bled into the white-gray, framing glacier blue, calculating eyes.

"Seriously?" Tala shook him, and Kai was hyperaware of the snow falling off of him in lacey clumps. "What's wrong with you?"

Kai glared. He just had to ruin a perfectly good death. Now that he was there, there was no way Tala was going to let him slip off peacefully into the snow.

"Don't you give me that look. This is what you get for all those times you stopped me from a nice rest in the snow. All it takes is a nap."

 _All it takes is a nap,_ Kai recalled, words said with a cool casualty. _All it takes is a nap in the snow, and all will disappear._

Tala's fist on the back of his shirt was unyielding, more like a hook in a wall Kai was hung onto than a hand. His fiery hair almost seemed to project heat in how bright it stood out against their surroundings.

Kai thought about fighting him, then realized he was too heavy, too tired, too cold to bother. So he just sighed.

"I'm already too late," he said. "I'll probably get killed once I get back for failing anyways. And even if I didn't, what's the point?" He hung his head, his arms, imagining he could see the snow creeping back up to swallow him once more.

"I didn't come out here to philosophies with you, Hiwatari, so stop slouching and use your legs." The hand moved to twist him around.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere warm. Somewhere we can stay."

"Till when? Boris will find us."

"He won't. This place is solid."

Kai sighed. He was more than half-tempted to sink back down into the snow now that Tala wasn't forcing him to stand up. He was just so damn tired. "If this is you trying to be a smart-ass techie—"

Tala pushed him, and Kai stumbled. Surprisingly, he didn't automatically fall on his face.

"If we don't get you there, you die."

Kai laughed at the wolf's words. In response, Tala just shoved him again, forcing him to walk, one heavy, sunken boot after the other.

"If you die, a lot of others will die too."

"That's also very funny," said Kai dryly, though he was finding his steps somehow getting easier. Was he getting stronger? No, the snow had to be getting thinner. It seemed to whiten too, and when was the last time he had noticed the dry slap of the wind against his face? When had it vanished?

"It's not," said Tala. "And I should yank out your fingernails for laughing at me when I'm trying so hard to speak mushy crap."

Another shove at Kai's back made him walk faster. Yes, the snow was thinning.

"If you die, I'll die," Tala said, so quietly Kai thought he might not have heard.

"What?"

Another shove. The snow was all but a thin carpet, and tundra grass poked through. The air had turned bright and white, like the true snow.

"If you die, your teammates will die," shove. "Tyson's grandfather will die," shove. "Max's parents will die," shove.

Kai swung a fist around, forcing Tala back. "Enough with the shoving! And why the hell would they die? That's a pretty sappy lie to—"

"Because they need you, dumb ass!" Tala's ice blues were like fire, searing through the cold to pierce Kai. "Forget for a moment that you're an idiot child who has no idea what it is he'd be throwing away by nodding off in the snow and realize you aren't living for yourself anymore, you're living for others now. You've lost your life to them, Kai, and through that…" a self-satisfied smirk spread across his pale face. "You've found its too costly to throw away."

Without remembering how much distance he had crossed, only knowing that it had been vast, Kai suddenly found himself before the door of a cabin he somehow couldn't make out the size of. It was both vast and humble, grand yet compact, unreal and yet simply decorated in snow and pine with the bright green branch tips of spring.

Tala didn't wait for Kai, but opened the door and pulled him in.

In the receiving room alone there were countless numbers of people. Everywhere he looked he saw faces he knew, faces he loved, and faces he didn't know at all, but felt he should. The air had become warm and full of light, and wherever there wasn't a person there were old bits of furniture just welcoming one to relax and be comforted.

His name echoed about him. Tyson came forward and gave him a rough, one-armed 'man hug' as he called it, followed by Max, who was laughing in delight, and a grinning Ray. They crowded him, warming him with their closeness till he couldn't even remember what it felt like to be cold.

Grandpa Granger embraced him as though he were his blood. Friends from the Abbey he had never been allowed to grow close to. Kind servants who had made his life with his grandfather bearable. Wyatt. Old friends. Old rivals. His father. His soft, gray haired mother.

He could feel the earth turn even as he fell into her embrace.

And after all of these, they split apart to clear the way to the entrance of a hallway in the back, in which stood the gorgeous image of his winged Ayah, dressed in a loose pink blouse and shorts. She held a bundle in her arms and beckoned him to her, and it wasn't till he saw the tears pouring down her face did he realize he was crying as well.

No sooner had he reached her than she held out the little bundle. His heart jumped at the little fist jerking out from inside. Even as he gingerly, cautiously, so nervously accepted it from her, a pair of big, blue eyes peered out at him in a cherubic face.

He had never held a baby. He had never even come close. Did people really come in such small packages?

Ayah leaned over and kissed the baby, then kissed his cheek. As she did so, she whispered into his ear just as clear as if she had yelled.

"Happiness is being with those you love forever."

The little fist came out to grab one of his thumbs that stuck out from the hand holding their head. This blue-eyed little person clinging onto him…this was his. This person was his. They even had cloud-like wisps of pale silver hair across their scalp.

He couldn't even comprehend the emotion that poured through him, weakening his knees and crumpling his face. He found himself laughing as he thought, _it's a little pocket companion. Travel size for your convenience, so you don't ever have to be alone._

"Please don't take that nap."

 **September 1st is coming up! Please stay tuned, as I've worked my butt off to make it a real special day that I hope all of us can enjoy. ^.^ See you then!**


	11. Perhaps a Beach

**To promote the release of the first book in a line of inexpensive Kindle books I'm starting to help put food on the table (literally), here is an early update! I'd put another one right after this one, but since that often confuses readers who just drop by and skim down to the latest chapter before seeing if there were any before it, I think I'll just wait for Monday. In the meantime, check out my new book I've been working so hard on!**

 **It's called "Wendy" You can find it on Amazon under the pen name T.S. Lowe. ^.^ I'll include its synopsis at the end of this chapter.**

9

Bodies pressed in around him. Someone had nuzzled their face into the feathers between his shoulder blades, and another had commandeered an entire wing as their blanket. The hair on his calf told him another yet used his leg as a pillow.

It was a testament to how good his dream was that he hadn't woken up while all of this had occurred. It was also a testament to his sanity that he instantly flailed out of reach, dislodging three metamorphed teenagers.

Preoccupied with the creepy-crawlies rupturing his skin, he accidentally pushed himself out and over the edge of the raft.

His heart didn't even have the time to skip a beat before he landed with a spray of semi-damp sand.

Ayah and Max popped their heads over his knees, bleary eyed. Tyson snored on.

"Wha...wha?" Max ran his forearm over his eyes. "Where are we?"

"I thought that's what you were supposed to know," Kai almost growled, tugging his legs off with a squeak of vinyl rubber.

Ayah took in their surroundings with a thoughtful pout. From where she was in the boat, Kai figured she must have been the one who had nuzzled into his back. Recalling a hint of black hair, he held in a groan. Freaking Tyson should know better than to use him as a cuddle partner.

"No need to look so grumpy," said Max, displaying his usual perceptiveness. "It was freezing last night, and you were like a space heater, it was awesome."

Ayah gingerly stepped out of the raft. A wave reached up the beach and around her toes. Kai just managed to scramble out of the way before the wave's fringes touched him. Nose wrinkled, he turned to take in the sparse, wave beaten grasses and scrubby trees. It was definitely not the tropical dream island people shipwrecked on in movies. Though past the stout cliff side of volcanic rock there might be more.

Max shivered and ducked back down into the raft. "Wakey wakey, dragon spawn."

"Go way," grumbled Tyson. "Cold."

"Kai's that way, if you want him."

"Nnnrg? Kai?"

Kai could hear Max's mischievous grin. "Your warm blanket? It's that way—open your eyes—that way. See my finger?"

As a groggy, black nest of a head wobbled above the raft's rim, Ayah stretched her arms towards the sky and _flexed._ Morning sun caught on masses of white, bringing out opalescent hues, like mother-of-pearl. Her tail widened, fanning out past that well rounded rear like a flattering skirt.

Kai's brain turned off.

When he finally managed to claw his way out of that stupor, Tyson was already half way up his shins. His ratted mess of long hair fit the shipwreck role to a 't,' though his half-lidded expression leaned him more towards drunk.

"Be a pal Kai—OW!"

"Apparently I didn't make myself clear the last time you latched onto my leg."

"And you're a big fat jerk, per usual!"

"Wow, I heard that one. Must've hurt," said Max, followed by a pop of the cooler. "Anyone up for break—wha? _Tyson!"_

"What? I got hungry," Tyson's next words had to fight through a yawn. "I'ma grow'n boy."

"Each of those bars had enough calories for a whole day for each person!"

"Yep, well. I had a multi-day, multi-person sort of hunger."

"More like a month. Jeeze, Tyson, do you have to be such a glutton?"

Kai had gotten to his feet and was busy flicking off damp sand from his tail feathers, the tips of which had been captured by the water and sagged. He stretched out his wings much like Ayah, relishing in the feel of morning sun, then set to work hooking his long tail feathers into his belt. Half way through he lost patience, flicked out his pocket knife, and cut the annoyance.

Ayah's aghast squawk broke through the breakfast bar turmoil.

"No!" she cried.

"What? Where's the shark?" asked Tyson stupidly.

"Relax. I'll doubt I need those three peacock feathers for flying," said Kai, tossing the long, oval tipped feathers into the sand and wondering why the heck he hadn't done that sooner. He then jumped as Ayah all but dived forward to catch them.

"But they were pretty!" Just as she met his eyes, sandy hands full of scarlet and silver-grey, she seized up, face reddening. "I-I-I…just…can I be invisible for a moment?"

Max snickered. "Guess Kai can't be pretty anymore."

"Poor Kai," drawled Tyson, before breaking into a yawn so wide it tipped him back onto the rim of the raft. "Man, I'm so TIRED!"

"You've got till I've checked out this place to wake up," said Kai, whose neck had also grown uncomfortably hot. He made his way out of reach of the surf, remembering the buckling of the roof on the boat cabin and wondering how much space he should give the others.

"I can help!" piped up Ayah, followed by the patter of her bare feet on the wet beach.

He didn't voice his doubts about her ability to get airborne. She had to figure out how to fly sooner or later. Rather, he braced himself, finding his muscles clicking into place as they had atop the ship cabin naturally, and jumped.

Sand came up with the small explosion of his first down thrust. A steady breeze from the ocean scooped him forward as he pounded up, up—and out. Warmth he hadn't realized he was missing beat into his breast, bled through by his efforts and sunshine.

It took him more effort to climb than it had on the ocean, surprisingly. By the time he got to an acceptable height for gliding, he suddenly found himself oddly unbalanced. He teetered on the air currents until he leveled out. Apparently chopping off his own feathers didn't have no effect, even if they were superfluously long anyways. But a bit of adjusting had all it had taken to fix that change.

The land that spread out before him beyond the cliffs was green, and perhaps a good five miles deep until he saw ocean once more. As he drifted in a slow circle, he found the edges of the island vanishing abruptly behind a modest mountain to the south, which looked as though it had once been an active volcano, if it wasn't still, though the lush greenery below said otherwise.

"Kai!"

His name was little more than a squeak on the winds. Ayah's white figure fluttered towards him, some feet below. She seemed to be trying to glide, but then jerking out of it from nerves or something.

"Flatten out!" he called down.

"What?!"

"Just relax. The wind will catch you naturally!"

Her white expanse passed beneath him with some more squawks and totters, but quickly stilled and leveled out, followed by a loud whoop that made him grin and twist round to catch up.

"We're flying! We're flying!"

He dipped down and, to his deep pleasure, managed to level out just to the left and above of her.

"Good job," he said.

In answer, she just squealed. He laughed. If he had known this would make her this happy before—

The memory of the baby's weight in his arm split cross his mind. Without thought, he leaned away from her and into a turn to head back to the beach.

"Let's head back!" he called over his shoulder.

What was this feeling? What was he suppose to do with it?

"Kay!"

Back on the beach, after Kai was reminded that his now warmed up and awake sprained ankle still didn't like him, Tyson had at least woken up most of the way, and both he and Max were clapping.

"That's even more awesome up close!" said Tyson.

Kai had to agree with him. He had actually managed to land on his feet this time, irritated ankle aside.

"The magnificence of flight was captured perfectly in your figures," said Max in a mock, nasally art critic voice.

Congrats ended by Ayah crash landing into Kai's back. All nice feelings turned to cold, watery, gritty pain.

Some scrambling, apologizing, and yelling later, they settled into their powwow of what to do next while Tyson picked at the duck tape around his toes.

"If I'm in the water I'll have an easier time figuring out where we are," said Max. "And I could catch us some crabs too if you're up to roasting them, Kai. You didn't happen to see any fruit trees, did you?"

"I was a bit too high for that." Kai smacked Tyson's hands, earning him a glare, but it wasn't as though they had packed infinite amounts of duct tape, and it was unlikely they were going to stick around on this rock. "And I don't know if we should trust anything we could find. I'm not exactly adept at Pacific Island botany."

"That implies that you're adept at some other kind of botany," said Max, once more flashing his intuition.

"Let's just say if we were actually on a continent I might be able to pull up a wild carrot or something." Just the basics, Kai thought, as a murmur of memory rose up of his old Abbey training. They had never covered ocean travel.

"Get back to me when you can pull up a pizza," said Tyson. "I'm STARVED!"

"You're the last one who gets to say that," said Max, irritated.

"I already said I was sorry! And I told you, I was half asleep!"

Kai cut across Max's retort. "But you can figure out where we are if we get back to sea?"

"I think," Max frowned. "It's…hard to explain. But I need to eat first. I feel like crap. I guess swimming for three days straight can do that, right?"

"Three days?" Ayah's eyes went wide.

Kai didn't like that reaction, and cut across Max's response once more. "Get fishing, then. I'll cook whatever you bring up. I'll try to find some coconuts or something, they should be harmless."

"What do I do, then?" said Tyson, tail giving one, solid thump against the sand. "Jeeze, guys, why'd you even wake me up?"

"You could always find wood," said Max. "Those who don't help don't eat."

"I can't help what I do when I'm half asleep!"

Kai hoped that was true, otherwise he had a serious question concerning whatever moved Tyson to wrap himself up in one of his wings. Tyson, of all people, should understand Kai's precarious tolerance for physical contact.

"Besides," continued Tyson, "how am I supposed to get over that cliff to all the trees? No way am I walking around it."

"Guess you'll just have to figure out how to fly," said Kai wryly.

Ayah, who had been watching this dialogue with her fingers in her toes, tail feathers splayed out behind her, lit up. "That's right! Element of storm! Flying should be in your gut."

Tyson gave them all a low brow, unamused glare.

"Fine," he eventually grumped. "Are you gonna slap my hands if I try to break free of my bonds, Captain?"

Kai just gave him a look. He didn't answer stupid questions, especially from idiots who ate three days worth of rations for four people in one night. He was worse than an untrained dog.

With a farewell salute, Max headed back out to the waters. Kai moved to take off, then changed his mind as Tyson cut through the last of the duct tape with his claws and peeled it free from his toes. He could always go _after_ the show.

Ayah seemed to be of the same mind as him, as she sat with rapt attention, even tugging her feet closer to her as though to contain herself.

"What you guys look'n at?" Tyson flashed his trademark, over-confident smirk. "Eager to see the majesty which is the combined glory of Dragoon and World Champion Tyson Granger?"

Kai snorted. Majesty. The day Tyson showed any level of 'majesty' was the day he thought before he ate.

Ayah, however, humored him. "Yeah! I want to see you fly, oni-tan!"

Tyson blushed with pleasure and puffed out his chest. Kai put a hand over his mouth, thinking 'oni-tan' might have been too much, but it would make it all the more hilarious when Tyson landed on his face.

"Alright. Hold on to your panties." Tyson crouched on his tall, dragon limbs stretched, claws sinking into the sand as though it were hot butter. "Here—"

Max exploded out of the waves. " _Run!_ "

Tyson stumbled. "Wha—"

At that same moment, gray movement flashed in the corner of his eye. He didn't think or ask, he just flung himself over Ayah.

There was an explosion, followed by a weight of ropes slamming them into the sands. Ayah gasped beneath him and Tyson let out an angry roar that didn't quite sound like himself, but more like his old dragon.

"This is not happening!" he bellowed.

A sharp wind picked up. A storm of thudding feet echoed across the sand.

As he heard Max give a shout, along with a great crash of waves, Kai held Ayah's head tight to his chest and breathed out flames. The ropes didn't catch, but melted, slowly. He threw his wings out to tear at the nylon, the taste of his own fire lighting up his blood. Fierce protectiveness like nothing he'd ever known lit up his being.

Wind picked up by Tyson's shouting stirred the embers of the melting nylon, coaxing them into flames that caught and melted more of the net. He flung it off him, turning in a crouch to face the owners of the many feet—

And met with a wall of soldiers, army grade rifles pointed at him. There had to be at least two dozen of them, all zoning in on him.

A voice speaking English crackled over a megaphone. Lucky for Kai, he was multi-lingual. "Stand down!"

Tucking his wings back to him, or rather, around Ayah, he checked on Max without moving his head. He still stood in the surf, water hilling about him unnaturally, shoulders hunched in mid-charge. He couldn't see Tyson, but could certainly hear him.

"What the hell we ever do to you? Think you can catch us like some animal?!"

"Tyson—" Kai started.

" _Like hell!"_ The wind rose to a high whistle.

That idiot was going to get them all killed. "TYSON!"

The wind calmed, if just. At a look from Kai, the water about Max's hips sunk back to the shore. His glare through a curtain of wet hair was anything but docile.

Kai turned his attention to the wall of men, narrowing his focus to the one with the megaphone. "What do you want?"

The megaphone rose and crackled. "Your cooperation. Whatever business you lot have with Doctor Tate has been moved to the jurisdiction United States of America. You're to come with us quietly or by force."

"The nets weren't necessary."

The man, probably a commander, said nothing to that. They had probably feared them flying away before they could say anything. Still not the smartest thing to be done.

"You won't harm us?" asked Kai.

"If you cooperate," at least the man didn't bother using the megaphone to say that.

Kai exchanged glances with Max, who gave a slight nod.

Sucking in a heated breath through his nostrils, he slowly stood, bringing Ayah up with him. He could feel her trembling in his hands down to his toes.

"Any wrong move by any of your men," he said, loudly and clearly, "And they're barbeque."

He tried to meet the commander's eyes, make him see just how serious his threat was. But the man was too busy gesturing commands to his men, most of which lowered their guns, though they didn't put them away completely. Several hurried to him, and he felt his feathers rising, though he banked the heat in his throat.

As his hands were coaxed from Ayah and tied behind him, Tyson swore.

"You've got to be joking! Since when does every jerk we meet have guns? This is so not okay."

"Just shut up and do as they say," Kai said back to him and to himself, as the soldiers had pulled Ayah from his chest and were cuffing her hands behind her back as well. She looked to be doing her best to remain calm, all while her eyes darted from Kai to their new captors and back again, face pale beneath her sunburn.

None of them had to like it. But for now, if they were lucky, they hadn't just fallen out of the frying pan and into the fire.

 **"Wendy" synopsis:**

 _Wendy knows she tends to be a mother hen to her friends. But if she doesn't, who will? Her boys are lost from their parents in more ways then one, especially the mysterious Kolya, who awkwardly befriended them after fleeing the Russian mafia. She almost wishes he hadn't when she finds herself on the end of what must be a one-sided love. After all, why would the cool, handsome, aloof Kolya have any interest in a nagging she-man like her?_

 _But when Kolya's past catches up with them, getting rid of an unwanted crush will be the last thing on Wendy's mind._

 **You get a book and I get milk. You don't get me milk, and you still get an extra chapter of "Before Beasts." I think it's a good deal.**


	12. Burn it All

**I'm really sorry for missing an update! I sort of...well, my husband's job sent us out to Colorado, and on the way there both our cars more or less blew up and we got stranded in Utah, and since his job was only paying him 13/hr anyways which wasn't enough-as you know from my whole 'Publishing Wendy so I can buy food' thing last week, my husband quit his job and we are not living in my grandma's basement. :D Yay?**

 **Oh, but he has a new job, one that pays him 16/hr instead, so maybe we'll actually be able to make it on our own now and I won't have to beg my fanfic readers to buy $2 books?**

 **Btw, if you have gotten Wendy, pretty, pretty please leave a review. ^.^PLEEEEEEASE.**

 **...*sigh* freaking Honda Civic...**

10

"Where's my mom? What have you done with her?"

The bespeckled man sitting on the other side of the window sighed. Kai didn't like the look of him. He wore a black polo shirt, the kind one would go golfing in, though his ID tag on his pocket tooted him as both a 'doctor' of something and a marshal. The armed American soldiers lining the wall behind them helped a lot in taking him seriously.

"Peace, Mr. Tate, we've done nothing to your mother. She's just as we found her in Los Angelos. Once we're done here we'll send you on your way to her. Not even the US army could keep a mother from her child."

Kai had to fight down a dark laugh at that. Armies did that every day, regardless of that stupid "No Arms" world peace treaty, which all these soldiers were currently grinding into the dirt.

"Now, if you boys—and young lady," he bowed his head to the taut Ayah hidden in a ring of protective boys. "Will promise to keep the peace and not hurt any of these fine men, not only will you all make it to California just as you planned, but these boys will get to see their mothers too. We don't wish anyone any harm. We only want to learn."

"Then why couldn't my mom do it? How did you even know about us?"

"America has its ways." He lifted a hand to smooth his upper lip, as though a mustache had once been there. "You can't expect me to confide a country's security secrets to you, right? Really boys, you don't have to," he waved the hand at them. "We're not going to hurt her. Most we'll do is take a blood sample, that's all. You can't blame us for wanting to learn about you first, can you? You were about to board illegally on our shores."

"We have passports!" said Max.

"Had," said the man, and suspicion crawled across Kai's skin. "Now, if you'll space out and show us you mean no harm, we can get this over and done with. For testing's sake, we're going to have to separate you—"

"No," said Kai, speaking for the first time since they had accosted them on the beach.

"—but only for a short time," the older man finished with that same air of a tired adult being patient with children throwing tantrums. Kai knew that tone well. He'd had to live as a teenager among adults who'd never had to draw blood in their lives.

Kai flexed his hands. The bottled up fire was starting to give him something very like heartburn, and no matter how many times he gulped, it wouldn't go down. He glanced around, trying to find some reassurance in the stance of the soldiers.

"Well, excuse us if we don't jump to help," he said as he did so. "We just wiggled out of a situation not unlike this one, and it didn't turn out too pleasant." Best not to mention the guns.

"We are aware of your abduction from the freighter. We assure you that we had nothing to do with that and are looking into the situation even as we speak. Now, if we could see the girl first."

They all tightened reflexively around her—or rather, Max and Kai did and Tyson followed along, not having the best skills in English. He just trusted Max and Kai to get enough to know what to do.

"She doesn't go alone," said Max.

The man gave a barely restrained sigh. "Very well. Mr. Hiwatari, you may accompany her. Just please keep your fire to yourself. None of us here want to avoid violence as much as we do."

A soldier went to open the only door in the dark gray, cinder block cell and waited. They all hesitated, and Ayah turned questioning, shivering blue eyes to Kai.

"You and me are going," he told her calmly in Japanese.

"Whoa, hang on, where are you going?" Tyson all but squeaked.

"Max will explain." Kai took a step forward. "You two try to stick together."

"Wait, should we have a plan or something? Kai, man, what if you don't come back?"

Kai was already to the door, his hand wrapped tightly around Ayah's. The heartburn rose to its highest pitch as he came within inches of a soldier. The hall outside had bleaching, white lights and windowless walls, strongly reminding Kai of Cain's bunker. That thought wasn't reassuring in the least.

"We'll figure it out," he heard Max say.

"But if we're all separated—"

The door closed behind them with a well-oiled, heavy click.

Ayah pulled in closer. There were armed men out here too, dressed in the same dark, bulky uniform and with something automatic and deadly in hand.

Moment's later, the Marshal Scientist came out from the other door, one hand in the pocket of his white slacks. He rubbed his upper lip again as though to smooth a mustache. More men followed with him; a personal guard.

"Thank you. This way, if you would."

Not like they had much choice. The soldiers penned them into a box that moved after the marshal like a wagon. More white, featureless halls went by them, and a passing thought made him wonder what the difference was between these windowless halls and the floors of the freight below the water level. If he closed his eyes, could he hear the creak of metal?

He could feel his heartbeat in the fingers clamped in Ayah's grip. She lifted up on tippy toes and gripped his shoulder with her other hand. Her whisper came to him as clear and quiet as only the denizen of sound could do.

"He's lying."

Well. There went that hope, meager as it was.

He leaned his head as close as he could, not caring if the men around saw them. He spoke so quietly that not even he could hear it, but he only hoped it was clear enough for her.

"Any truth?"

"Hard to say. I think he feels pretty justified with his lies. He did waver a bit on Max's Mom, though. Either that was the biggest lie of them all, or something happened with her that helps him feel that justification."

Kai couldn't help but feel a little impressed that she was able to whisper that all to him, still just as clearly, quietly, and also at high speed, and he was able to get all of it. He would trade fire breathing for that if he actually cared to talk to people, quietly or loudly.

Hearing someone lie, on the other hand…wait, had he lied recently? Did he know it? Or did his general anxiety cover that?

Not important. Kai schooled his thoughts back into focus. A part of him said he should have thought of the possibility of the US government getting involved, but that was only if they heard about them. Apparently, despite Tala's attempts to keep important facts out of easily accessible lines, Max's mother had not. And if the state of Japan's and Russia's (and now obviously the US's) breaking of the global pact.

Which brought another key fact to him. The doctor had yet to point out their obviously illegal use of weaponry. Perhaps he thought it too obvious to talk about, like the elephant in the room. Or perhaps he had been so focused on peeling Ayah apart from the others—instantly, Kai scrambled through what he could recall of his conversation with Max or his mother. Had he mentioned Ayah's use of sound as the catalyst? Had his mother? Hell, there was no way to know!

Meaning it was best to assume that the man did.

As they came to a narrow security door made of metal and armed with a sensor that made the one back in the mansion of Ayah's captors look like something out of a cereal box, Kai leaned in close to Ayah.

"What can you hear about this place?"

She closed her eyes. For a moment, he worried the obnoxious beeping of the doctor going through various clearances on the pad would cover anything up. It wasn't till they had passed through and to yet another short hallway that she tilted her head up to him and tucked it against his ear.

"Thick stone blocks a lot. It stops most vibrations, but I can hear a steady rumble. It could be anything, but it might be whatever is powering this station."

Power. How did this place get its power? Was that even important?

And then the doctor opened the second door, and Kai realized that wasn't a question anymore.

On the other side was the scientist's lab to end all scientist's labs. Having been in a fair share of them growing up, he recognized enough to shudder. This couldn't just be any bunker. They couldn't have just washed up on any bunker with this kind of technology. They had to be expecting them. They had to have something to do with…this couldn't be…

Even as he took in the screens, the wide discs of surgeon's lights on metal arms, holographic displays, metal exam tables complete with metal belts, glass boxes with white rubber arms, the distant lights, he felt whatever calm collect he had left flee.

Ayah stopped abruptly, jerking back from him. "Kai, what's…?"

The more he saw, the more he could feel each heartbeat spiking higher and higher until he feared it would simply stop. A modern, sleek display of tools he didn't want to know the purpose of, an empty white tiled room in the back separated by a thick glass wall, arms upon arms of bent metal, folded to machines and lights and platforms and tables. Two sets of double doors he knew the thickness of just by the way they swung on their hinges. So much stone that not even Ayah had been able to hear this much power, hear the ocean, hear…hear…

Her lips were moving. She had let go of his hand. He couldn't hear her anymore. The heartburn in his chest had spilled out into his blood and flesh, filling him to the tips of his fingers and toes. His wings rose up, and he couldn't have drawn them back in even if he wanted to.

For a space of time that he could have never guessed, he seemed to hang there, lava to the surface of his skin, memories and alarms zooming past too fast to catch, but enough to pound the nail of dread ever deeper into his chest.

And then he _burned._ Fire consumed him, and once more he was up in the catwalks above the stadium, caught in Dranzer's firestorm without a clue of why it had started.

 **And that's the end! Stay tuned next week for the sequel, "Before Beasts, There Was Lightning." ^.^ Oh, and as always, please let me know what you think and leave a review! Lovey dovey love love.**


End file.
